Some typographical terms
- Letter spacing:
- Tracking: the overall horizontal spacing of a piece of text. Wide or loose tracking describes large spaces between each letter, narrow or tight tracking describes letters which are very close together or even touching.
- Kerning: the distance between two letters. Kerning can produce odd effects, eg: "Th i s is s pac ed oddl y", but is usually used to make a line of type look more even. For example, mm are further apart than ll, you would track the ll more tightly so that they have the same sort of density on the page as mm.
Leading: the vertical distance between lines in the same paragraph. In early printing lead spacers were placed between lines of type to increase line spacing, hence leading.
Characters:
- en and em dashes: hyphens that are the width of a letter 'n' and 'm' respectively.
- Ligature: a graphical device to link two letters in a way that is more visually pleasing. Some common ligatures are for 'fi', 'ti', 'ae'.
Point: the standard unit of measurement for typography. There are 72 points to one inch.
Serif opp Sans Serif. Serif fonts have small horizontal lines at the turns of the letters, whereas sans serif fonts don't. The small horizontal lines on serif fonts help to guide the eye along a line, and so they tend to be used for paragraphs. Sans serif fonts are cleaner and are often used for headings. Times is serif, Helvetica is sans serif.
Weight: how thick the lines of each letter are. The same font can come in many different weights. Bold is the most common variation in weight that is used, but you can also find ultra light, light, extra bold and black.
Some general hints
Be consistent. Use the same fonts and formatting for the same kind of heading throughout a document
Use white space. Leave a large border, especially on the left and top of your document, try it! Also, use looser leading (ie: more space between lines), and at least half a line's gap between each paragraph.
Only use two fonts (maximum) in any one document, unless you have a very good reason to use more.
Don't use any font called "Comic ...".
Try using a serif font for paragraphs and a sans serif font for titles.
Use smaller fonts. Most people can comfortable read 10pt serif type. Headings don't need to be large to be noticed, try experimenting with different fonts.
There are no rules. The more you experiment with fonts and typography the more skilled you become and the more fun it will be. Good typography makes a big difference to the way people perceive a document.
For a far better description of the history of typography than I could ever do, awestruck props to Cletus the Foetus for his article on the evolution of white space!