К. THE NON-DESIGNER'S TYPE BOOK

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ntroduction с^

With the advent of computers on the desktops in the late twentieth
century, type and typography reached new heights of popularity. With this
increased awareness has come increased sophistication and the need for the
average person to understand how to create beautiful, professional typo¬
graphy that emphasizes the message, typography that is pleasing to the
reader, and that invites readers in and keeps them there.

If you have read and followed the guidelines in The Mac is not a typewriter
or The PC is not a typewriter, you are already creating type on a more
professional level than you were before.* This book takes you several steps
beyond those basic guidelines, into even more subtle details that make the
difference between good and sophisticated. You already recognize the
difference—I'm sure you can glance at the two samples on the following
page and instantly give an opinion as to which one is of higher quality. But
can you name exacdy what is creating that difference? Some differences are
easily identified, others are more subde. All are important.

If you're creating web pages, you'll find that many of the most important
typographic techniques cannot be accomplished in the plain text on a web
page. Type on the web will grow more sophisticated in the future, but for
now many of the special techniques can only be applied to web pages as
graphic pieces of type; that is, you create the headlines or fancy type in a
graphics application, then put that graphic onto the web page. When you
make that graphic text, you should of course apply every professional
technique available.

Some of the guidelines in this book are too time-consuming to achieve for
many everyday jobs, and I don't want you to think that unless you follow
every suggestion here, your type will be inferior. But a key to creating great
type is knowing what the options are in the first place. Once you know
them, you can make choices as to when it might be appropriate to forgo
some of the finer features.

So spend a couple of moments with the next few pages, make yourself con¬
scious of the details, and see how many differences you can name before
you look at the list. Then onward through the rest of the book, joyfully!

* Or if you read Beyond The Mac is not a typewriter, then you don't need this book! This book in
your hand is almost exactly the same as Beyond The Mac is not a typewriter, just a different title.