Kind & Structure, by Colin Wheildon, is a kind of books that helped change the best way lots of people thought of design.
I found it not lengthy after it was first printed in 1995. I labored at The Area Group, and the e book used a print advert we had created for example — luckily, a principally good instance.
All of us learn the e book, and we shortly realized there was one thing in it extra necessary than that ego-stroking commercial: An entire part about reading-comprehension and print design.
It reported on a 1990 readability research by the Newspaper Promoting Bureau of Australia (You’ll be able to obtain a PDF of the unique research right here; there’s extra element on the research and a few further findings price seeing.)
The research checked out varied font and design decisions and rated them by “comprehension.” Most of the findings had been stunning: the loss or achieve in comprehension was so large in some circumstances that it made us suppose once more about almost every part we’d each designed.
Right here’s what we present in Kind and Structure:
Serif kind
Good comprehension 67%
Poor comprehension 14%
San-serif kind
Good comprehension 12%
Poor comprehension 65%
Black kind on white background
Good comprehension 70%
Poor compression 11%
White kind on black background
Good comprehension 0%
Poor comprehension 88%
Black kind on a coloured tint background
Good comprehension 38%
Poor comprehension 43%
Black on 30% grey background
Good comprehension 3%
Poor comprehension 87%
Black kind on 10% grey background
Good comprehension 63%
Poor comprehension 15%
Blue kind on white background
Good comprehension 10%
Poor comprehension 81%
The lightbulb thought for many people was this: Font alternative actually issues. Leaving it as much as a designer who isn’t contemplating readability is a giant mistake.
Provided that the viewers of donors tilts closely towards folks over 60 — which implies a really excessive proportion of visible acuity points — I’ve to surprise how way more cash has been raised by even a small variety of fundraisers who’ve been serious about readability.
Kind & Structure remains to be obtainable. If you happen to haven’t learn it, it’s not too late!
