Design Principles - Type Hierarchy

From Newspaper spreads from the METRO, GUARDIAN, MIRROR, INDEPENDENT and i newspaper, we were asked to choose a page spread and analyse different aspects of the page including

• Which page had the best laid out type (neatest / most aesthetically pleasing)
• How many different typefaces were used on a single spread.
• How many different font sizes were used on a single spread.

We decided that the GUARDIAN had the most legible and readable layout so by classing this as the est layout we then picked the spread with the worse layout for legibility which was METRO and picked the spread that we thought was in between the 2 for readability, which we concluded was the newspaper i.

Guardian

  The guardian even though best laid out still had 43 different typefaces on a single 2 page spread.

Guardian also had 30 different font sizes.

i

i was the spread that was in between the best and worse spreads, it only had 16 different typefaces on the spread which means that it was the spread with the least amount of fonts by about half.

It also had 17 different font sizes

You would expect seeming though this newspaper has the least number typefaces and font sizes, which means you would expect it to be the least confusing and most legible and readable spread, however it seems using the same fonts and sizes actually just confuses the layout, resulting in the reader not being drawn to main headlines or important pieces of information.

Metro

The Metro spread was by far the worst lay out for legibility and readability, which suprised me, as this specific newspaper has a lower reading age than the others, so you would expect that readability would be one of the most important aspects of this newspapers layout. However due to the amount of advertising is in the newspaper there is a lot of confusion all over the spread which results in the eye not being able to slow smoothly from article to article but instead just confuse.

The metro has 28 different typefaces as well as 27 different font scales.