Verdana Typeface Information

Verdana is a sans-serif typeface which was designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft in 1996. Verdana was designed for desktop computers and was made to be highly readable and legible making it one of the most used typefaces of its time it was available to download from the Microsoft website and still is today, as a result its already preloaded to most desktop computers. Verdana was designed for computer use and was aimed to be readable at smaller sizes. What this typeface does not have is ;

• Sans Serifs
• Large X height
• Wide proportions 
• loose letter spacing
• Large counters

Because of those aesthetics this is an often used typeface by web designers attempting to get large amounts of type into a small place. 

http://www.fontco.com/font-facts/verdana.php


Matthew Carters experiance includes cutting punches in steel for metal typefaces, editing bitmaps and drawing outlines for photo digital systems. Another typeface Matthew produced was " Matthew's Bell Centennial " which he made as a bitmap for the use of typesettings in the late 1970's, the typeface was used to print phonebooks, these were always printed at high speeds on poor quality paper. After this point Matthew was set the task to create a highly legible and readable typeface, he began this by starting with what he had experiance in which was bitmaps.


Bitmap is a format in which it stores colour data for each pixel which results in crisp high resolution images, the only downfall being the file sizes are quite large which means bitmaps are only really used when in use for printable images.


Using bitmaps had a massive impact on peoples ability to read fluently,Matthew then focused on the final product and did 3 other sizes of bitmaps giving altogether 4 type styles within this type family. From those bitmaps he was able to hand render outlines of the typeface which then made this " Truetype Outlines" What is truetype outlines? its the combination of both engineering and art it was about defining hand rendered imagery and making the structure better this overall gave a much better crisp outcome.


http://www.fonts.com/aboutfonts/verdana.htm


Matthew carter made many typefaces throughout his career, here are some of the typefaces he made ;

• Bell Centennial
• Nina
• Tahoma
• Sophia
• Georgia
• Olympian
• Fenway

Matthew Carter Timeline




http://designmuseum.org/design/matthew-carter

Placement of type

Placement of type

These are a few examples of various placements of type, my allocated typeface is Verdana. Suprisingly by only using one typeface there was many outcomes i could of had by simply arranging the type in different ways. When arranging type there are some important things to consider, type should always be alligned in some form be neat and crisp. Type that is of more significance is normally bigger and in bold, this is to make the piece of type stand off the page more or in some cases more eye catching. Types of scenarios where the placement of type would be relevant would be in newspapers where the designer has a certain amount of text to fit into a certain space and make everything aligned also the most important parts of type will be in bold. Small changes in type can massively change the look and feel and the effect if gives to the viewer making this very important towards visual communication.

For maximum visual impact the main things to consider are

• Font
• Letter spacing 
• colour
• Point size

Here are my examples of various placements of type.

What i've learnt from doing this is how important type is and that it should never be undermined , in some circumstances type is more powerful than an image and can sometimes better be used to convey a message that perhaps and image cant. In a visual communication aspect changing such simple things can change a whole target audience this is something i will always keep in mind and remember when aiming something at a specific target audience.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-typography.htm

Verdana

Lower case Verdana

Upper case Verdana

Verdana Type Family


A type family incorporates all the variations of a single typeface including the range of different weights, widths and italics. They provide the designer with options that work together in a constant way

Legibility

How easy it is to distinguish one letter from another within a typeface, legible typefaces usually have larger counters. How legible a typeface is all depends on its purpose 

Readability

How easy words, phrases and blocks of type can be read, more readable type encourages for it to be read as it requires less effort. More readable type should be understood straight away as its the words which are readable not the typeface.

Conclusion to readability and legibility

From the information i have about legibility and readability the Verdana typeface is both readable and legible as each character of the typeface can easily be distinguished between one and other, also when the typeface is used in blocks of type its very easily read. Things that may effect the readability and legibility is the Tracking , Horizontal and Vertical scale

  

Character tab

 font, font style, font size,  leading,kerning,tracking, horizontal scale,  vertical scale, character rotation, bassline  shift. These are all the keys for typographic use in illustrator.

Verdana Tracking

This is the outcome for Verdana when tracking is used, tracking closes the spacing between each letter, this makes the word less readable. Each character isn't easy to be told apart so the word is also less legible.

Horizontal scale

Horizontal scale is how stretched out the typeface is this is only 150% but at a higher scale would make this typeface much less readable and legible.

Vertical Scale
Vertical scale is how stretched vertically the typeface is, at a much higher scale percentage this typeface would be very distorted and almost be fully illegible and non readable.