Tiny Type
Mark Barratt presented some canny research recently carried out on tiny type
Posted on 21 September 2005 by Anonymous User, Helsinki, Finland
Legislation today specifies minimum point sizes, 9pt in the USA and 14pt in the UK, in a bid to help the visually challenged among us. Of course, small type, the kind measured in millimetres, is everywhere. The brief was simple: ‘We’ve had some complaints about our terms and conditions’ – unsurprising given some parts were set at 4pt.
Tiny type can too small to proofread and ends up full of errors, and is even seen set white on black. Often such text cannot be ignored, such as the serial numbers on the backs of iPods.
Today’s fonts are usually based on single masters and lack the optical sizing of previous type technologies. Although OpenType does make optical sizing possible, such a major vendor as Adobe only ships a dozen families from its library of thousands with the feature.
Of course, typefaces specially designed for tiny typography are available too. But most have been created for a very specific context – Telephone and classified ad listings – unlike continuous text. Combined with the simplifying influence of the low fidelity print process of newspapers, the traditional ‘small size’ faces can also become inappropriate.
In fact, small details in a typeface, like slanted cuts on the stems, add perceptible sparkle even to tiny type when the print process is up to scratch. Some kinds of jobs even allow such a sparkle to be measured, for example direct mail where better typography can yield higher return rates.
Most typefaces that Mark tested were disqualified on more basic details. Such as serif fonts being too wide as their serifs soak up the space of small areas and condensed sans serifs too thin: ‘horrible to read’, in fact.
The tests done by Mark at Text Matters could be augmented by better font metadata from type vendors, too. The lowercase alphabet length in ems, the x height in ems, and x height as a percentage of body were available on the specimen sheets of yesteryear, and there is no reason foundries could not provide such data on their websites today.
Similarly while there are no type designers creating legible type specifically for continuous reading at small sizes, there is a real gap in the market for a compact and readable serif face.
The three sans serifs that Mark ultimately recommended were Poynter Agate, Formata and Griffith Gothic.
Griffith Gothic is a revival of Bell Gothic, and while Formata isn’t well known as an economical face, it fared very well. Amazingly, Poynter Agate could be read at 4.5pt.
Of course, a better typeface must be used at various weights and married to an effective use of colour and layout to satisfy the client. The lesson of this session was that ‘fonts aren’t always what we think they are’.