Eleanor's Help

I went to the Library again to look up biographies, and I was trying to find one that had a san serif font so I could study the best ways to use a san serif in my b

ook design.  After checking like 35 books, I finally found one (this might be telling me something...).  

The lonesome book was, Eleanor Roosevelt by Sharon Whitney, published by Franklin Watts in 1982, ISBN #0-531-04479-3.

Typeface: Helvetica

I think Helvetica is appropriate for readability.  It doesn't have the serifs that guide your eye to the next letter, but I think the high x-height, and its simplicity gives it a lofty, airy feel which my eyes definitely like... as opposed to the cramped typefaces with lots going on.

I don't think Helvetica is the style I would choose on a book about Eleanor Roosevelt. It wasn't a part of her time style, cuz she died right after it was made in 1962.  No offense to Eleanor, but I'm guessing from her pictures she wasn't super hip and maybe traditional is a word that'd fit her better. 

However, I think the book designer used Helvetica in an effort to attract the older generation in the 1980's.  The cover is designed very 60's-ish which was probably intentional along with Helvetica to attract the young adults who embraced that st

yle, who knew of Eleanor when she was alive, who are then middle aged and are intrigued in knowing more about this woman that they heard of so much. If this is the case, then I think Helvetica is appropriate.

Typesize: 10 pt.

Leading: The Leading is spaced nicely.  It gives the tall x-heights room to breathe, but its not too much that you can't follow it.

Indent: 1/4 inch

I can't really tell if there's a correlation with the text size. The indent would make up 2 Em spaces, but that's a

ll I could decipher.

Line Length: 10 words/line average

I think it is very comfortable to read.  I was studying some other books and the longer the line, the m

ore I get overwhelmed.  10 words per line is about perfect because I see myself make progress, but it doesn't chop up it up so much that it seems fragmented. 

Comparing all this to my Design.......EEEEEKK!

 

So there's lots of things I've realized th

at do not work with my design.... Here I go.

Typeface: Universe

I think its fine.  I just got to adjust everything else.

Typesize: 14 pt!

That's freaking huge for a san serif!  Ha, I'm going to bring it down to like 10 Pt.

Leading: 15 pt.

I think it'll be about perfect if I decrease my font size to 10. 

Indent: _Indent

I'm going to print out my book with this indent and see how I feel about it.  I think it's interesting, but I wonder if it'll be distracting.

Line Length: ? ?

So all my paragraph layouts are different and so the count is all different per line.  I'm definitely going to change my Froshaug book so the line length isn't so different throughout the page. With decreasing my font size it'll make the line length longer on all of them.