Legibility (Critical commentary)

Legibility is an important factor to consider when creating any design that involves text. These could be illustrations, posters, magazines etc. If something is legible, then it is easy to read. It's important because the text work together with and supports the image; therefore, people need to be able to read it. There are several factors that affect legibility.

This page from my sketchbook shows my experimentation of typography.
Legibility was a key factor to consider when choosing which would be used
for a magazine logo.

            The typefaces you choose effect both the legibility and tone of your work. Typefaces are a style or design of type, and they don't need to be clean cut for it to be legible. Some typefaces are more legible when they are bigger because they are more spaced out and their outlines are clearer to see.

            The colour you choose for your type can either improve or reduce text legibility. Using colours that contrast each other for either the text and the background, or the text and its outline, will improve legibility because the colours stand out amongst each other. This is why Microsoft Word automatically uses black text on a white background (unless you decide to change it). Black and yellow are the best colours to use together to improve text legibility because they have the highest contrast. This is why hazard signs use these two colours. Using colours with a low contrast will reduce text legibility. White and yellow are very rarely used together, especially in design, because there is very little contrast between them.

            Many people find it hard to read a large block of text and remember what it said, which is why alignment and layout is so important. Using paragraphs and indents will improve legibility because it breaks the text up. It is much easier to read and remember several pieces of small information than one large piece of information. Using columns can also have the same effect, which is why newspapers use them. Just like using paragraphs, adding pictures will also help to break up the text, improving its legibility.

            Improving legibility not only effects how easy text is to read, but also how easy information is to find. For example, website forms often use colours and layout to make it easier for people to be able to fill them in.