Page Layout

Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements (content information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience in specific contexts) on a page.

History and development

Beginning from early illuminated pages in hand-copied books of the Middle Ages and proceeding down to intricate modern magazine and catalog layouts, proper page design has long been a consideration in printed material. With print media, elements usually consist of type (text), images (pictures), and occasionally place-holder graphics for elements that are not printed with ink such as die/laser cutting, foil stamping or blind embossing. Since the advent of personal computing, page layout skills have expanded to electronic media as well as print media. Theelectronic page is better known as a graphical user interface (GUI) when interactive elements are included. Page layout forinteractive media overlaps with (and is often called) interface design. This usually includes interactive elements and multimedia in addition to text and still images. Interactivity takes page layout skills from planning attraction and eye flow to the next level of planning user experience in collaboration with software [citation needed] engineers and creative directors. A page layout may be designed in a rough paper and pencil sketch before producing, or produced during the design process to the final form. Both design and production may be achieved using hand tools or page layout software. Producing a web page may require knowledge of markup languages along with WYSIWYG editors to compensate for incompatibility between platforms. Special considerations must be made for how the layout of an HTML page will change (reflow) when resized by the end-user. Cascading style sheets are often required to keep the page layout consistent between web browsers.

Grids vs. Templates

Grids and templates are page layout design patterns used in advertising campaigns and multiple-page publications, including websites. A grid is a set of guidelines, able to be seen in the design process and invisible to the end-user/audience, for aligning and repeating elements on a page. A page layout may or may not stay within those guidelines, depending on how much repetition or variety the design style in the series calls for. Grids are meant to be flexible. Using a grid to lay out elements on the page may require just as much or more graphic design skill than that which was required to design the grid. In contrast, a template is more rigid. A template involves repeated elements mostly visible to the enduser/audience. Using a template to lay out elements usually involves less graphic design skill than that which was required to design the template. Templates are used for minimal modification of background elements and frequent modification (or swapping) of foreground content.

Most desktop publishing software allows for grids in the form of a page filled with coloured lines or dots placed at a specified equal horizontal and vertical distance apart. Automatic margins and booklet spine (gutter) lines may be specified for global use throughout the document. Multiple additional horizontal and vertical lines may be placed at any point on the page. Invisible to the end-user/audience shapes may be placed on the page as guidelines for page layout and print processing as well. Software templates are achieved by duplicating a template data file, or with master page features in a multiple-page document. Master pages may include both grid elements and template elements such as header and footer elements, automatic page numbering, and automatic table of contents features. ..

Front-end vs. Back-end

With modern media content retrieval and output technology, there is much overlap between visual communications (front-end) and information technology (back-end). Large print publications (thick books, especially instructional in nature) and electronic pages (web pages) require meta data for automatic indexing, automatic reformatting, database publishing, dynamic page display and end-user interactivity. Much of the meta data (meta tags) must be hand coded or specified during the page layout process. This divides the task of page layout between artists and engineers, or tasks the artist/engineer to do both. More complex projects may require two separate designs: page layout design as the front-end, and function coding as the back-end. In this case, the front-end may be designed using an alternative page layout technology such as image editing software or on paper with hand rendering methods. Most image editing software includes features for converting a page layout for use in a "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) editor or features to export graphics for desktop publishing software. WYSIWYG editors and desktop publishing software allow frontend design prior to back end-coding in most cases. Interface design and database publishing may involve more technical knowledge or collaboration with information technology engineering in the front-end.

Comprehensive Layout
In graphic design and advertising, a comprehensive layout or comprehensive, usually shortened to comp, is the page layout of a proposed design as initially presented by the designer to a client, showing the relative positions of text and illustrations before the specific content of those elements has been decided on, as a rough draft of the final layout in which to build around. The illustration element may incorporate stock photography, clip art, or other found material that gives an idea of what should be visually communicated, before entering any negotiations concerning the rights to use a specific image for the purpose. Picture agencies may encourage such use free of charge, in the hope that the comp image (sometimes referred to as a "positional" image) will end up being used in the final product. For this reason, it is sometimes mistakenly believed that "comp" is short for "complimentary," as it is in some other promotional contexts. Even in the age of rapid desktop publishing software, comps may be developed using hand-rendering techniques and materials to avoid investing too much time on the computer before client approval of the idea, depending on the complexity of the production task. A hand-rendered comp may be useful in helping the client refrain from "nitpicking" the production quality and focus on the design idea. "Comp" may also stand for composition or composite layout.

Typography
Typography (from the Greek words (typos) = form and (graphe) = writing) is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading (line spacing), adjusting the spaces between groups of letters (tracking) and adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning). Type design is a closely related craft, which some consider distinct and others a part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type [2][3] designers do not consider themselves typographers. In modern times, typography has been put into motion [4] in film, television and online broadcaststo add emotion to mass communication. Typography is performed by typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic designers, art directors, comic book artists, graffiti artists, clerical workers, and anyone else who arranges type for a product. Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. Digitization opened up typography to new generations of visual [5] designers and lay users, and it has been said that "typography is now something everybody does."

History
Typography traces its origins to the first punches and dies used to make seals and currency in ancient times. The typographical principle, that is the creation of a complete text by reusing identical characters, was first realized in the Phaistos Disc, an enigmaticMinoan print item from Crete, Greece, which dates between 1850 and 1600 [6][7][8] [9] BC. It has been put forward that Roman lead pipe inscriptions were created by movable type printing, but [10] this view has been recently dismissed by the German typographer Herbert Brekle. The essential criterion of type identity was met by medieval print artifacts such as the Latin Pruefening Abbey [11] inscription of 1119 that was created by the same technique as the Phaistos disc. In the northern Italian town of Cividale, there is a Venetian silver retable from ca. 1200, which was printed with individual letter [12] punches. The same printing technique can apparently be found in 10th to 12th [13] centuryByzantine staurotheca and lipsanotheca. Individual letter tiles where the words are formed by [14] assembling single letter tiles in the desired order were reasonably widespread in medieval Northern Europe. Modern movable type, along with the mechanical printing press, was invented in mid-15th century Europe by the [15] German goldsmithJohannes Gutenberg. His type pieces from a lead-based alloy suited printing purposes so well [16] that the alloy is still used today. Gutenberg developed specialized techniques for casting and combining cheap copies of letterpunches in the vast quantities required to print multiple copies of texts. This technical breakthrough was instrumental in starting thePrinting Revolution. Typography with movable type was separately invented in 11th-century China. Metal type was first invented in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty around 1230. Both hand printing systems, however, were only sporadically used [17] and discontinued after the introduction of Western lead type and the printing press.

Scope
In contemporary use, the practice and study of typography is very broad, covering all aspects of letter design and application. These include: typesetting and type design handwriting and calligraphy graffiti inscriptional and architectural lettering poster design and other large scale lettering such as signage and billboards business communications and promotional collateral advertising wordmarks and typographic logos (logotypes) apparel (clothing) labels on maps vehicle instrument panels kinetic typography in motion picture films and television as a component of industrial designtype on household appliances, pens and wristwatches, for example as a component in modern poetry (see, for example, the poetry of E. E. Cummings)

Since digitization, typography has spread to a wider ranger of applications, appearing on web pages, LCD mobile phone screens, and hand-held video games. The ubiquity of type has led typographers to coin the phrase "Type is everywhere". Traditional typography follows four principles: repetition, contrast, proximity, and alignment.

Readability and Legibility

Legibility is primarily the concern of the typeface designer, to ensure that each individual character or glyph is unambiguous and distinguishable from all other characters in the font. Legibility is also in part the concern of the typographer to select a typeface with appropriate clarity of design for the intended use at the intended size. An example of a well-known design, Brush Script, contains a number of illegible letters since many of the characters can be easily misread especially if seen out of textual context. Readability is primarily the concern of the typographer or information designer. It is the intended result of the complete process of presentation of textual material in order to communicate meaning as unambiguously as possible. A reader should be assisted in navigating around the information with ease, by optimal inter-letter, interword and particularly inter-line spacing, coupled with appropriate line length and position on the page, careful editorial chunking and choice of the text architecture of titles, folios, and reference links.

Advertising
Typography has long been a vital part of promotional material and advertising. Designers often use typography to set a theme and mood in an advertisement; for example using bold, large text to convey a particular message to the reader. Type is often used to draw attention to a particular advertisement, combined with efficient use of color, shapes and images. Today, typography in advertising often reflects a company's brand. Fonts used in advertisements convey different messages to the reader, classical fonts are for a strong personality, while more modern fonts are for a cleaner, neutral look. Bold fonts are used for making statements and attracting attention.

All About Fonts: Font History and Font Characteristics

This is a resource page for learning about the origins and characteristics of fonts.

What is a Font?
A font is all the letters, numbers, punctuation and other symbols which compose a typeface. Fonts were first developed as cast lead type for printing presses, and were later digitized as typefaces for use on computers.

The first font

The first typeface was designed by Johann Gutenberg, for his movable type press. Books were all hand-lettered at the time, and Gutenberg wanted to create a faster way to produce books that looked hand-lettered. He designed his type in the style of the Gothic blackletter at the time, so that his printed books would look hand-lettered. As more printing shops opened up, printers began to look at other lettering styles to use as models for typefaces. More thought was put into creating typefaces, and this gave rise to the art of typographic design.

Roman and Italic styles

Nicholas Jenson designed the first true Roman typeface around 1460, which was used for books printed in Italy. This was an upright typeface that was lighter in design compared to the heavy blackletter type of German printing. To this day, upright typefaces are referred to as Roman, or Regular. In the early 1500's, Aldus Manutius developed the first Italic typeface with Francesco Griffo, influenced by the popularity of cursive writing. The capitals were still upright, but all lowercase letters were slanted to the right, like cursive writing. The slanted letters took up less space on the page, so books could be smaller in size and therefore less expensive. This style was called Italic, meaning from Italy, but today an italic typeface refers to slanted, or oblique, letters (including capitals).

The measurement of type

In the mid-1700's, a French printer and typographer named Pierre Fournier le Jeune standardized the system of measuring typefaces. It was referred to as the Pica system of measurement and became widely used in England and America. spacer equals a leading of 15 points. This is a more exact way of spacing lines of text, compared to our more simple Single or Double spacing methods today. Exact control of the leading allows for more flexibility in typesetting and page layout, depending on the particular typeface used and the font size.

Types of Fonts
1. OpenType Font OpenType fonts are the current standard in fonts. In an OpenType font, both the screen and printer font is contained in a single file (similar to TrueType fonts). They also allow for an extremely large character set, meaning that same single file can contain additional characters, languages and figures that might previously have been released as separate files. OpenType Font fonts allow for an extremely large character set, meaning that same single file can contain additional characters, languages and figures that might previously have been released as separate files. 2. TrueType Font A TrueType font is a single file that contains both the screen and printer versions of a typeface. TrueType fonts make up the majority of the fonts that have come automatically installed on Windows and Mac operating systems for years. TrueType fonts fonts make up the majority of the fonts that have come automatically installed on Windows and Mac operating systems for years, though OpenType fonts are the current standard. 3. PostScript Font A PostScript font, also known as a Type 1 font, has two parts. One part contains the information to display the font on screen and the other part is for printing. When PostScript fonts are delivered to printers, both versions (print and screen) must be provided. PostScript fonts have two parts. One part contains the information to display the font on screen and the other part is for printing.