Typophile

Brochure point size puzzle

NeueB

Erm...I don’t have much to contribute here and pop in occasionally to ask a question; I hope that’s okay...

I have to reproduce a brochure in another language; the english brochure has been supplied, and I’m puzzled over the choice of point sizes throughout. Would be grateful to know if someone here can detect any logic to this:

Type Point size/leading are as indicated across a six-panel brochure:

Panel 1:
Subhead 9.65/11
Body: 9/11
Body: 7.5/10

Panel 2:
Head: 23.152/15
Body: 9/10
Subhead: 13.891/15.569
Body: 8.489/10.804
Body: 8/9.5
Body: 7.5/9

Panel 3:
Same as panel 2.

Panel 4:
Same as panels 2 and 3, with a little 9.65/11 and 9/11 thrown in.

Panel 5:
Head: 17 pt.
Subhead: 14/auto
Body: 9.25/auto

Panel 6:
Head: 43.996/46.853

Otherwise it’s a well-designed brochure; am I just looking at sloppy typesetting?

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David Berlow

Is the brochure for a circus?

Cheers!

Tiffany Wardle

Some of the odd sizes could come down to the fact that they designed it for a different size, were given new dimensions, and just shrunk the text to fit. But the randomness has no rhymne or reason. Is this for David Carson?

Gary Long

Well designed? Maybe the general layout, but it must be a bit weird to read with that bizarre typesetting. I can’t think of any logical, or even illogical, reason for the type sizes being all over the map either; just don’t do that when you re-set it in the new language.

NeueB

Heh. Sadly, no, it’s not for a circus. And I don’t know who David Carson is. But I suspect that MissTiffany is probably right about globally adjusting the type to accomodate a changed format or size. Yikes.

Thanks all for taking the time to respond. And yeah, I’ll be standardizing the sizes in the next language version.

Don McCahill

I remember Frank Romano bemoaning the flexibility of type sizes at a type conference in the 90s. He was thinking of spec’ing type from printed copies, and how difficult it would be to determine the size, if designers use tenths of a point sizes. And here you have 23.152 ... thousandths.

I can just imagine trying to figure that one out with a type gauge.

BradB

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Carson_(graphic_designer)

NeueB

Okay, I think I’ve figured it out:

Fibonacci’s brain:
6, 8, 10, 13, 16, 21, 26, 34, 42, 55, 68

Fibonacci’s brain on drugs:
7.5, 8, 8.489, 9, 9.25, 9.65, 13.891, 17, 23.152, 43.996

And thanks for the wiki link, BradB.

Steve Tiano

I suspect that what they did was set everything at some size and leading, and then scale things by percentage—maybe one item at a time, but maybe the whole piece, one “page” at a time.

Captured from web.archive.org on 22 Dec 2007. view this capture