Reading Typography

The configuration of text rendered by printed, mechanical, or electronic means encompasses most of what we call typography. Typography may have an impact on legibility, the ease with which strings of letter forms can be decoded into words by a competent reader, and it may serve to supplement or support the semantic content of a text communication. Reading, of course, is an impressive perceptual and cognitive feat, and studying the effects on it of both experimental manipulation and “naturalistic” observation of typographic variables may aid our understanding of more fundamental aspects of object and word recognition, as well as of reading itself. This entry discusses aspects of legibility, economic considerations, and some misconceptions of reading topography.