About Ordinary Type

Carl Shank • October 3, 2022

About Ordinary Type. The type you use everyday is important to your documents. You want legible type that is readable for all kinds of correspondence and reports. We usually give little thought to such type, just trusting our computers to spit out the right look. However, that is often not enough.


Once limited to a few “staples,” users now have thousands of fonts from which to choose. But, who really cares about what typeface is used? You do! Is the type I use “what is pleasing to the eye” (aesthetics/form), or is it simply an issue of “what gets the job done” (mechanics/function)? That’s very often the question.


But, do we care about type? Every time we say, “That’s really nice!” about a wedding invitation, or “This is so clear to read!” about an ad or a flyer, or “That must be really sophisticated!” about a magazine cover, we indicate our care about type. On the other hand, when we squint to read an important announcement, or simply don’t read newspapers or ads due to poor composition, or too many typo’s, we are saying that we care about type. We, consciously or unconsciously, use “bigger” and “bolder” type for signs and directions.


Why? Because we care about legibility. We want the message that our type conveys to get across to those who read it. We want “playful” type for those youth announcements, or children’s functions, or athletic games. While we use either manually paste-in graphics from an art supplier, or computer-generated graphics placed into the text through a page layout program, we show our care about type when we stop to consider what typeface goes with this graphic.


We care about type because we also like to experiment and try a new challenge. So, we spend a few dollars and buy one or two of the many font packs made available to the Mac or Windows user. Then, as many professional typographers quickly point out, we tend to overuse and misuse and do all kinds of “wrong” things with fonts and font combinations. But, we like to experiment with type anyway.


Why should you care about type? Simply because when choosing a typeface, you must consider both character and legibility. Character has to do with the overall personality or mood a typeface projects. Legibility has to do with how easy or difficult it is to recognize each word in a particular typeface. Readability deals with the relative ease with which you can read a printed page. Overall appearance of the page involves how your type is arranged and how the page is designed. Page layout knowledge will help you in the overall “look” of your bulletin or newsletter. Typeface, or font, knowledge will help you better communicate the message you want the reader to receive.



Yes, we want to “get the job done.” We may not want to invest the time or money involved in typographical training. We may not have the slightest inclination to do so. I believe an intelligent and studied use of type choices available to the Macintosh or Windows computer user today can help us achieve that end.


Note the included font sheets below. They will help you understand the type we use everyday and some other type knowledge. I am indebted in these charts to a number of typographers and other articles -- Stephen Coles, The Anatomy of Type: A Graphic Guide to 100 Typefaces, Kindle Edition; Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (Hartley & Marks, 1992); Philip Brady, Using Type Right: 121 Basic N0-Nonsense Rules for Working With Type (Northlight, 1998); Stephen Moye, Fontographer: Type By Design (MIS Press, 1995); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica; https://www.caseyprinting.com/blog/2013/typography/times-new-roman-the-newspaper-font; Allan Haley (15 September 1992). Typographic Milestones. John Wiley & Sons. p. 106; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantin_(typeface); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial)


Successful Layout & Design

Puritan Typography

By Carl Shank • May 15, 2026
Puritan Typography Theology Informing Type “Creational realities have not spilled out randomly without purpose; rather, they reflect the wisdom, design, and intention of the good God who made them. It’s our job, then, to observe and learn. . . . And indeed, long before [Jonathan] Edwards began to keep his notebook of earthly pointers to heavenly truths, the seventeenth-century English Puritans were writing lengthy volumes organized around exactly this sort of principle.”[1] “The Puritans were a group of ministers and laypeople within the Church of England who sought to promote Reformed and experiential piety while striving to purify the national church from Roman Catholic influences in doctrine and worship, beginning during the Elizabethan era and continuing as a powerful force until the early eighteenth century. More broadly defined, the Puritan movement included those who were firmly within the Reformed and experiential tradition that flourished not only in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, but also well into the eighteenth century north of Hadrian’s Wall (among the Scottish Presbyterians), across the North Sea (among the Dutch Further Reformation divines), and across the Atlantic Ocean (among the New England Puritans and eighteenth-century evangelicals).” [2] Puritan typography flows from Puritan theology. The English Puritans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries inherited a typographic world shaped by the late Renaissance, the Reformation, and early modern printing. Their type styles were not merely aesthetic choices. Rather, they reflected theology, scholarship, readability, economy, and cultural identity.

King James Bible Typography

By Carl Shank • April 7, 2026
The King James Bible (KJV), commissioned by King James 1 in 1604 and published in 1611, has been a profound Bible translation and masterpiece of beauty through the ages. It has been one of the most influential English translations of the Bible. Its history combines politics, religion, and literary achievement in early modern England. It has an elevated, poetic style that influenced many later writers. It has been prized for its literary beauty, historical continuity and memorability in public reading and worship (ChatGPT).
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