Why are serifs around to begin with?

Some believe that, back in the days, serifs gave chiselled text a more neat aspect. Because letters carved into stone were lacking sharpness, people added these terminations so they could emphasise glyphs and really point out where one letter ended and another began. Nowadays, serifs really do increase the readability and maximise the reading speed because. Why is that though? Due to their presence, the eye can travel along a straight line and follow letters easily. We can all conclude that there’s no problem a serif can’t solve!

How many types of serifs are there?

When we think about serifs, there are three different kinds that pop into our minds: hairline, slab and edge. Furthermore, each one of these three can be split up into two different kinds: bracketed and unbracketed.

Hairline serifs are easy to recognise because they are the thinner than the main strokes of a particular glyph. For a better visualisation, check Didot or Bodoni.

Slab serifs are squared and can sometimes be thicker than the strokes of a particular glyph. Two ideal examples of slab serifs are Clarendon and Rockwell.

Wedge serifs are triangular and kind of innovative in this world of serifs. In case you can’t put an image on that, check out Farnham or Neue Swift.

Bracketed or unbracketed?

We heard the terms, but we cannot associate a meaning to them. The time to define bracketed and unbracketed serif has come and it’s right now. So, with no further ado, let’s find out the difference between those two concepts.

Bracketed serifs are those that have a visibly smooth, curvy transition between the serif and the glyph. On the other hand, an unbracketed serif joins the glyph in a sharp way, often forming a right angle.

Searching for the right combination of fonts? Check out WhatFontIs.com for an impressively large collection of fonts. Serif or sans serif, bracketed or unbracketed, lowercase or uppercase, whatever you’re searching for, you’ll undoubtedly find something amongst over 500,000 fonts.

The post Principle #7: serifs and brackets appeared first on WhatFontIs.com Playground.

If you’re new in the world of graphic design, you might not know very much about Gestalt’s principles and their major importance. Based on certain psychology laws that date back in the ’20s, these principles explain how humans perceive chaotic stimuli around them and how they group similar elements for better understanding. Basically, as humans, we constantly search a sense of unity in everything we see. We perceive images as a whole, sometimes forgetting that they are made of lots of different elements. This characteristic of ours simplifies complex images and creates recognisable patterns that help us better understand things that surround us.

Why are Gestalt’s principles so important for graphic designers?

A really good graphic designer should bear in mind that psychology plays a crucial role when it comes to visual perception. In order to really understand how people perceive their work, graphic designers should be aware of how the human mind works. If they make use of these principles, they will be able to:

• combine different elements that can turn out to be effective in various given situations;
• put emphasis on certain ideas, leading to awareness, action and behavioural change;
• design certain products that serve a particular need.

With no further ado, let’s talk about some of those principles!

Principle 1: similarity

According to this principle, things that are similar appear to be grouped together.

Principle 2: proximity

Based on this, things that are closer to each other tend to appear more related than things that are placed appart.

Principle 3: continuity

The continuity principles teaches us that elements disposed in a straight or curved line are smoothly connecting between them.

Principle 4: focus point

As you probably expected, this principle teaches us that the element that stands out in a design will be the first to capture the viewer’s attention.

Principle 5: closure

Last, but not least, let’s talk about closure. According to this principle, the human mind succeeds to perceive forms and figures in their final form. Even though they are incomplete, we are able to intuit the missing parts and to mentally complete the form.

If you want to find out more about Gestalt’s principle, check out this short video. And now that you have read this, you might want to expand your creativity. Go on WhatFontIs.com and check out some of our most creative fonts. You’ll surely love them!

The post Let’s talk about Gestalt’s principles appeared first on WhatFontIs.com Playground.