OUGD403: Study Task 4 - Typesetting

Today's lecture was about type and how it should be properly set and in what ways it can be set in to make it more legible or readable, or in some cases both. This is something that, surprisingly enough, isn't always considered when creating documents such as takeaway menus etc.

Legibility

The quality of being clear enough to read.

Typeface /

Serif or Sans

X-Height

Readability

The ease with which a reader can understand a written text.

The way in which words and blocks of type are arranged in a layout.

Tracking/Kerning

Leading/Line Height

Type Size

Contrast

Hierarchy

So for our task we had to find a takeaway menu either online or from inside a takeaway shop, that we thought could do with improvements as far as type setting goes. From this we had to then choose a section of the takeaway and re-typeset it.

I chose a menu I found online from 'Sandal Pagoda' which is a Chinese takeaway based in West Yorkshire.

Current Takeaway Menu

Re-Typeset Menu Section w/ Design Adjustments

I thought that the design of the menu should also have been altered just to make the takeaway menu as a whole more readable but also to work better with the new typeset text. This is because within their original takeaway menu, all the type seemed to be cramped due to the badly arranged combination of images and type. I retained some of the colours used within the original menu as these work perfectly fine, all bar the blue that was originally used. I decided not to use the blue as it was entirely easy on the eyes but also a more contrasting mix of background colour and type colour was needed to allow for the whole menu appear a lot clearer.