| FONT CHARACTERS,
EXPERT SETS, DINGBATS & DROP CAPS
STANDARD CHARACTERS
Most fonts have a standard set of 256
characters. These characters include: upper and lowercase alphabets,
numbers, punctuation, and other standard keyboard characters. Some
font vendors also produce special font sets called Expert Sets that
provide additional characters such as ligatures, swashes, dingbats,
old style numbers, etc.
To check which characters are available in a particular
font you can use the Key Caps feature (available ont eh Macintosh).
It displays a keyboard layout and indicates which combination of
keys you need to press to access a specific characters.
The standard 256 keyboard characters include obvious
characters such as lowercase and uppercase letters. There are also
some less obvious ones including:
Ñ ¥ © ® Œ § £
ä ‚ Æ … ƒ µ
ILLUSTRATOR MAKES IT EASY!
To access special characters in Adobe
Illustrator, go under the “Type” menu and select “Glyphs.”
Alternatively, after you have placed your text, you can utilize
“Smart Punctuation” under the “Type” menu
and Illustrator will automatically correct things like dashes, ligatures,
quotation marks, extra spacing after periods, and ellipses.
LIGATURES
A ligature is the combination of two characters.
Standard ligatures include:
Expert sets may also have ligatures for ffi and ffl
and possibly a variety of others.
SWASHES
Swashes are fancy characters that are used in small quantities to
add interest to type. They are not usually included in the standard
font set, but often appear as Expert Sets.
OLD STYLE FIGURES (NUMBERS)
The numbers in a regular font are usually larger and sit on the
baselines. When these regular numbers appear in text they seem out
of place. Oldstyle figures (available in Expert Sets) fit in better
with lowercase letters because they also have ascenders and descenders.
ORNAMENTS AND DINGBATS
A dingbat is a printer's term for decorative type elements; they
are also called ornaments. For example, Zaph Dingbats contains arrows,
hearts, stars, snowflakes, checkboxes, etc. A picture font is a
font that is even more image oreinted than a dingbat. Examples include
Birds, Mini Pics, Lil Fishies, and Critters.
Dingbats and picture
fonts add visual interest to the layout, make graphic communication
more attractive to look at, and hopefully simpler to understand.
BEWARE: Dingbats and
picture fonts can turn into pictorial confusion! Watch that
you don't clutter up your page or your type.
Symbols and pi characters predate type. Scribes
designed utilitarian and artistic elements to aid and delight
the reader. But in our era of overabundance, use them sparingly;
use them with discretion and forethought.
Ways to use dingbats:
• With pull quotes
• To
indicate the end of an article
•
In place of a bullet for a bulleted list
•
For creating a border effect
•
Playfully, for humor's sake
•
As background texture
•
In logos
•
To replace certain characters in text
•
As paragraph markers
•
As a graphic problem solver |
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What about Initial and Drop Caps
in Typography? They can be a great stylistic tool. Click here
Initial
& Drop Caps
for a handout on how and when to use them in
your design work. |
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