About Ordinary Type

Carl Shank • October 3, 2022

About Ordinary Type. The type you use everyday is important to your documents. You want legible type that is readable for all kinds of correspondence and reports. We usually give little thought to such type, just trusting our computers to spit out the right look. However, that is often not enough.


Once limited to a few “staples,” users now have thousands of fonts from which to choose. But, who really cares about what typeface is used? You do! Is the type I use “what is pleasing to the eye” (aesthetics/form), or is it simply an issue of “what gets the job done” (mechanics/function)? That’s very often the question.


But, do we care about type? Every time we say, “That’s really nice!” about a wedding invitation, or “This is so clear to read!” about an ad or a flyer, or “That must be really sophisticated!” about a magazine cover, we indicate our care about type. On the other hand, when we squint to read an important announcement, or simply don’t read newspapers or ads due to poor composition, or too many typo’s, we are saying that we care about type. We, consciously or unconsciously, use “bigger” and “bolder” type for signs and directions.


Why? Because we care about legibility. We want the message that our type conveys to get across to those who read it. We want “playful” type for those youth announcements, or children’s functions, or athletic games. While we use either manually paste-in graphics from an art supplier, or computer-generated graphics placed into the text through a page layout program, we show our care about type when we stop to consider what typeface goes with this graphic.


We care about type because we also like to experiment and try a new challenge. So, we spend a few dollars and buy one or two of the many font packs made available to the Mac or Windows user. Then, as many professional typographers quickly point out, we tend to overuse and misuse and do all kinds of “wrong” things with fonts and font combinations. But, we like to experiment with type anyway.


Why should you care about type? Simply because when choosing a typeface, you must consider both character and legibility. Character has to do with the overall personality or mood a typeface projects. Legibility has to do with how easy or difficult it is to recognize each word in a particular typeface. Readability deals with the relative ease with which you can read a printed page. Overall appearance of the page involves how your type is arranged and how the page is designed. Page layout knowledge will help you in the overall “look” of your bulletin or newsletter. Typeface, or font, knowledge will help you better communicate the message you want the reader to receive.



Yes, we want to “get the job done.” We may not want to invest the time or money involved in typographical training. We may not have the slightest inclination to do so. I believe an intelligent and studied use of type choices available to the Macintosh or Windows computer user today can help us achieve that end.


Note the included font sheets below. They will help you understand the type we use everyday and some other type knowledge. I am indebted in these charts to a number of typographers and other articles -- Stephen Coles, The Anatomy of Type: A Graphic Guide to 100 Typefaces, Kindle Edition; Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (Hartley & Marks, 1992); Philip Brady, Using Type Right: 121 Basic N0-Nonsense Rules for Working With Type (Northlight, 1998); Stephen Moye, Fontographer: Type By Design (MIS Press, 1995); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica; https://www.caseyprinting.com/blog/2013/typography/times-new-roman-the-newspaper-font; Allan Haley (15 September 1992). Typographic Milestones. John Wiley & Sons. p. 106; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantin_(typeface); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial)


Successful Layout & Design

Art Nouveau Typography

By Carl Shank • September 6, 2025
Art Nouveau fonts grew out of the late 19th-century Art Nouveau movement (c. 1890–1910), which sought to break away from academic, historicist styles and create a new art for the modern age. The style flourished across Europe and America in architecture, furniture, illustration, and typography. In lettering, Art Nouveau embraced organic forms, flowing curves, floral motifs, and asymmetry, reflecting the movement’s fascination with natural growth and hand-drawn ornament. Art Nouveau took its name from the Maison de l'Art Nouveau, a Parisian gallery that exhibited the works of artists and designers who were associated with the movement. The style was characterized by flowing, curvilinear forms inspired by natural shapes and motifs such as flowers, vines, and insects. It also incorporated elements from other artistic traditions, such as Japanese art and the Arts and Crafts movement. Art Nouveau was particularly popular in Europe, where it influenced a wide range of artistic disciplines, including architecture, interior design, furniture, jewelry, and graphic design. Some of the most notable Art Nouveau architects included Hector Guimard, Antoni Gaudí, and Victor Horta, while artists such as Alphonse Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley, and Gustav Klimt were celebrated for their decorative and ornamental works. Art Nouveau declined in popularity after World War I, as artists and designers began to embrace new, more modernist styles. However, its influence can still be seen in many aspects of contemporary design, and it remains an important and influential movement in the history of art and design. 

Ornamental Gothics

By Carl Shank • August 30, 2025
Gothics History. Gothic typefaces are a broad group of styles rooted in medieval calligraphy and evolved into distinct print types during and after the invention of movable type via Gutenberg in the 15th century. They are sometimes confusingly named. In Europe “Gothic” usually refers to blackletter (medieval scripts), while in the U.S. “Gothic” often refers to sans-serif typefaces since the 1830s. Gothic script is a broad term for the entire family of medieval European scripts that developed from Carolingian minuscule around the twelfth century. “Minuscules” are lower case letters as distinct from capital letters, or uncials. Type developed in the sixth through tenth centuries with modern lettering evolving from Carolingian scripts. The Emperor Charlemagne used these letters as an educational standard. These densely packed scripts featured tall, narrow letterforms, strong vertical emphasis, sharp, angular connections, a dramatic thick/thin contrast and minimal spacing between letters. Gothic-inspired fonts create immediate medieval impact and work beautifully for titles, logos, and short display text. They are used today in Fantasy Gaming, Historical Projects, Themed Entertainment (like the Renaissance Fair), Book Design, Certificates, Breweries and Distilleries. Jack Nolan, a professional graphics designer, has provided a fetching display of such faces in his "33 Medieval Fonts Perfect for ‘Ye Olde’ Designs in 2025."(1)
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