Typophile - Newspaper font size? - Comments

You may find that Myriad

William Berkson — Thu, 1 May 2008 18:48:46 -0700

You may find that Myriad Semi-Condensed or Condensed works better for you for headlines—and you may have them on your machine as I believe that they have come bundled with some of the Adobe software.

OK, thanks. The Myriad and

Adam Union — Thu, 1 May 2008 17:50:14 -0700

OK, thanks. The Myriad and Chaparral in the sample are tracked at 95% but I could always make it a little more condensed...

The real problem with Myriad, I think, is the the bold: its so bland as a headline font it hurts. The semibold is even worse. For captions and roman-weight titles it’s excellent, though.

I just compared Myriad to Corbel—Corbel has a nice clean look but feels too simple for the job.

The school does have Helvetica and Cheltenham: would either of those be good as the caption and/or headline font? I know the New York Times uses both but its look is probably too formal for this setting.

While it’s possible to use

Nick Shinn — Thu, 1 May 2008 15:27:36 -0700

While it’s possible to use any face, it’s usually a good idea to pick something with short descenders for a newspaper. Corbel, for instance, would be nasty in “Grade eights...” with the descender of g and ascender of l bumping.

I thought Myriad was far too bland
Unless you’re picking a specific display face, e.g. Meta Headline, it’s probably better to go with a generic sans, and take the blandness off it by nuancing tracking, leading, and horizontal scaling to suit your layout.

If you’re experimenting with controlling white space Adam, how about tightening up the tracking on the (Myriad) heads a bit?
That would “drive” out” the white space into the surrounding area.

At the least, I think you should make it consistent

Right.

I was thinking of Corbel

Adam Union — Thu, 1 May 2008 14:56:52 -0700

I was thinking of Corbel earlier...I’ll try it again. Thanks for the advice.

I must be doing columns differently: I have .12” between every single column, even if they are in the same article. The only difference is that between articles, a vertical line seperates columns with .06” of room on each side.
You seem to be refering to another way of handling column spacing...what do you mean?

Thanks,
Adam

Well, Nick, maybe you do

auricfuzz — Thu, 1 May 2008 14:49:43 -0700

Well, Nick, maybe you do have a point; the current version above does feel newsy and a bit different. But those wide columns, especially at the bottom of the page, can feel oppressive without some white around them. At the least, I think you should make it consistent; if you’re not putting space between article, then you shouldn’t between columns within articles, either.

If you only want to use type already on your computer, you could try Corbel; it has a slightly harder feel to it than Myriad.

So Myriad is beter than

Adam Union — Thu, 1 May 2008 14:30:44 -0700

So Myriad is beter than Chaparral? I thought Myriad was far too bland...I even considered switching to Helvetica because it looks noticeable and original by comparison

Before Myriad I used the new Microsoft font Candara for headlines, which is extremely informal. Myriad was better, but I didn’t think it was a great headline or caption face.

As the type designer for the Globe and Mail (I think it looks fantastic, by the way), I will blindly listen to any newspaper layout advice of yours...what do you think the headline/sans font of the newspaper should be?

Your layout is fine. The

Nick Shinn — Thu, 1 May 2008 13:52:23 -0700

Your layout is fine.
The design has punch and immediacy, which is so important in a paper.
And you’ve managed that with a considerable level of editorial complexity.
It would be a huge mistake to fancy it up by adding white space and non-news types such as Chaparral...which I can see you’ve just done, and already it’s starting to look like a wishy-washy corporate newsletter.
In the context of newspapers, rules are much better than white space for demarcating content.
In general, it’s a good idea to do the opposite of what graphic designers and typographers recommend for newspapers —unless they actually have experience in designing one.

Publisher does have

Adam Union — Thu, 1 May 2008 13:36:05 -0700

Publisher does have baselines which work perfectly...should I leave more space after larger headlines than after smaller ones? Now I leave less than 1 leading (10.2pt) after everything, which seems constricted.

Here is a prototype of my latest layout design, with 1 leading space after the heading (from the descenders). Is that enough white space?
I also bumped the inter-column spacing to .12” from .1”.

Super:

Randy — Thu, 1 May 2008 11:33:36 -0700

Super: http://www.newseum.org/media/dfp/pdf1/CA_SFC.pdf
There is a very fine display cut for section heads too. On the front page you can see the subheads, italic and text. EDIT the newseum for the LA Times is strangely defaulting to times roman and stretching to match metrics. Looking nasty! What kind of newspaper is that?? :-)

Adam: I think you need the contrast between serif and sans. Don’t replace the sans with a serif. I might choose darker, more flat sided sans with tighter fitting. This is preference. If myriad and chapparal are the only choices, stick with myriad.

A related and interesting read (previously linked on typophile): http://www.ascendercorp.com/pdf/Ascender_Corp_Fonts_on_the_Front_Page_11...

Yes — and between your

auricfuzz — Thu, 1 May 2008 06:42:42 -0700

Yes — and between your columns, where you really need it. But you’re right that it can be a tricky business. To echo Nathaniel again, if you set up a baseline grid (though I don’t know if you can in Publisher; in InDesign it’s pretty easy) you can just use that to define all your white space issues. So a headline may be one, two, three, or four leads from the text, and so on.

Actually, in the Newspaper Designer’s Handbook by Tim Harrower (which I actually recommend just as much as Bringhurst for you; it’s incredible for explaining news design from the ground up), there is one page on spacing. He writes, as an example: “Headlines: Above: allow 18 pts. between logos or unrelated stories and top of the headline. Below: Allow 6 points between descenders and text/photos below. Roundups and briefs: When compiling packages of briefs that use small headlines (12- or 14-pt.), use tighter spacing: 1 pica of space above the headline and 6 pts. below.” Maybe this will give you an idea of how spacing might work.

EDIT: Your idea of looking at other newspapers may in the end be the best way. You may want to look for ones that have a similar layout to yours and examine their use of white space, both within and without articles, horizontally and vertically.

I’ve never known how to

Adam Union — Thu, 1 May 2008 05:44:07 -0700

I’ve never known how to properly add whitespace—do it wrongly and it looks like you’ve made a bad layout mistake.

Should I just add a bit of space under each headline? That seems to be what several papers do.

Actually, their Electra,

auricfuzz — Thu, 1 May 2008 02:05:56 -0700

Actually, their Electra, called “Electric,” was done by Jim Parkinson none too recently. According to this interesting Adobe PDF, it was designed prior to 1996. Looks like he also did a custom version of Metro for them, but that doesn’t seem used for much of anything anymore.

Adam, your paper has a really great modularity, with a lot of different elements to catch the readers eye — very nice! But you could really use some white space for breathing room; the gutters between columns are very tight if not nonexistent, and you should put some between the different elements as well. Try building it into the template; it will make the newspaper a whole lot more attractive. Even if you don’t implement a baseline grid as Nathaniel said (which is a great idea that worked well for me in the past), think of the white space as pacing your page — you need the proper amount to give your readers a place to grab onto the next element or they’ll be moving around so quickly they won’t have anywhere to stop. As with many things, Bringhurst is good for understanding this, too.

And while we’re on the semi-relevant best-designed newspaper in the U.S., my favorites include the Houston Chronicle, Kansas City Star, and the Virginian-Pilot, with the WSJ, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Baltimore Sun as runners-up.

EDIT: And I second Chaparral, though it might be a little light-hearted for news. If you do have any money you can finagle out of your school’s newspaper budget, I would strongly recommend buying some new type (which of course people around here can help you out with) — the perfect typeface(s) can go a long way toward establishing a strong identity, even if future generations are not as committed to design excellence as you are.

EDIT 2: And, Mikey, they’re not just Font Bureau specimens; there are a lot of Hoefler & Frere-Jones types in them, too ;-)

Randy, show me a sample of

SuperUltraFabulous — Thu, 1 May 2008 00:45:56 -0700

Randy, show me a sample of their Electra. I’ve always thought of that face suitable for books not newspapers. Must be a new custom job. The LA Times uses a custom Kis which is really pretty and well suited for the task when I would have thought that Kis was for book reading. And you are right about that their sans– very clunky.

Adam, I really like your paper. Chaparral is worth a shot tho.

Mikey :-)

Thanks Randy; I’m thinking

Adam Union — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:29:40 -0700

Thanks Randy;

I’m thinking of changing all the Myriad to Chaparral..I think it looks a little austere now for a high school paper.

SuperUltra: them’s strong

Randy — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:41:51 -0700

SuperUltra: them’s strong words man. Not even leaving the state, SF Chronicle’s headline and text versions of Electra are something to behold. Esp the headline. Then again, I love Electra. Their sans, not so good. In fact I would say generally that newspapers often choose safe and stale sans whilest serifs and slabs are allowed tons of personality.

Adam: that looks nice!

Newspaper font size?

Adam Union — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:36:44 -0700

This is my first Typophile post—please excuse any blatant ignorance

I do the layout for a high school newspaper. It is tabloid sized, five-columns, justified, 2” wide each (1.92” text-useable when you include margins) and I’m having some trouble figuring out just what size to make the text typeface. I’ve had to drastically updated it every issue as my design skills improved: I’ve gone from 9.8 pt Liberation Serif to 9.1 pt Georgia to *something* Utopia, hopefully, for the upcoming issue.

I’ve had .15 pt condensing but I’m thinking of swtiching to .1 condensing with 9.4 pt. Utopia. Leading has always been 10.2. Here’s the question: is that a good size? It’s a high school, so too small and I don’t think anyone will read it, but too big and huge spaces start to appear in the text. I’m not a fan of hyphens, but I’ve let Publisher do its .25” hyphenation.

I’ve googled ’Utopia font sizes’ but have come up with nothing—I can’t find what size type works for other newspapers.

If you have any general size rules-of-thumb, I would appreciate it so much. Thanks in advance