'Legibility' and 'Visual Heirarchy'

an example of heirarchical flow on an Esquire cover.

'Legibility' and 'Visual Heirarchy' both concern the connection between the information, and the way it is presented in order to best communicate the intended message. Legibility refers to the clarity of the typeface or the individual lettering in question and is crucial in terms of ensuring that your target audience is able to succinctly understand and digest the message within it. This in itself is merely a characteristic of legible type and not a necessary primary function of type in design in general - some typefaces are created and used with the intent simply to fit a prior theme or convey a particular message through the illustrative use of type. The legibility of type can be dictated to in several ways - notably colour and size, font-weight and purpose. The colour of a font can immediately help or hinder legibility due to the dramatic fluctuations in contrast - for example, black on white and vice-versa are a good example of immediate legibility in terms of the starkness of the contrast which enables it to 'grab' attention - In terms of monochrome visual heirarchy this is immediately the first thing you see in comparison, for example, to grey tonality, which would naturally 'appear' second. Contrastually, an example of not-so-legible typesetting would be white on yellow or vice-versa. An example of over-zealous contrast is based in colour theory - the use of contrastual colours such as yellow on purple or green on red are considered faux-pas mainly due to the way in which they can 'dazzle' or confuse the audience, as well as the overall legibility of the work. Size itself can also be a limiting factor, as too dramatic a shift between the largest and the smallest font sizes can create a situation whereby the smaller font becomes illegible in comparison, which is also not helped by font-weight - which describes how bold (or how italicised) a typeface is, and can contribute in much the same manner - as bold can be as overwhelming as an overly-large font-size. On the other hand, the 'Heirarchy' of a piece of work refers to the whole piece and the intended order of information - the overall use of text, for example, as well as image within what is primarily a 'Graphic Communication' viewpoint; for example, the utilisation of an underlying 'grid' or margins and gutters. This enables tailored 'text and image' based works as there is a sense of balance created by utilising negative space within images for type, and also a heirarchical pattern for the elements you want to be seen first - this is often apparent on magazine covers as the logotype or the header are usually proportioned in such a manner that they 'appear' first. Both of these principles can be found throughout the entire multi-faceted concept of design simply because they are vitally important to aesthetically pleasing layouts and design involving any combination of text, image or paginated design.

This is an example of work I created which illustrates the concept of heirarchy.