The importance of good typography

As a researcher, I spend a lot of time writing. Papers, reports, briefings, minutes, blogs – they all need to be done sooner or later and each format has its own challenges. There are some common features though and most importantly, each document must be tailored to the needs of the anticipated audience. This does not only mean adjusting the technical level of the content (e.g. a discussion of statistical tests isn’t very useful for a magazine article aimed at high-school students); the presentation of the document must be appropriate as well.

A well-designed document should draw the reader into the text, or at the very least, not put them off reading. Writers however often do not have the time, interest or expertise to properly typeset their own documents and as a result, texts tend to range from the abysmal to the mundane; beautiful readable documents are few and far between. While this criticism typically applies to the daily in-house documents of any office, it is equally relevant to professional academic publishers. I recently purchased a book from a major academic press which, although not poorly designed per se, is a rather uninspiring, 250 pages of boiler-plate Times New Roman. The spacing, headings, punctuation and so on are technically correct but it makes me think that I’m reading a well-formatted draft, rather than a finished product.

Typography should be an extension of the personalities of both author and text. So, just as this personal expression can be squashed by rigidly defining a style, a lack of interest in document presentation similarly deprives the author from an opportunity to present his or her content’s best possible face to the reader. In future, I plan to write more about typography here, especially for academic content in print and on the web. For homework though, try taking one of your favourite books off the shelf and look at the copyright page. You might see something like “Set in Adobe Caslon 10/12″ – typography at work!