Italic, Script, and Decorative Type

1. Posture

Posture is the vertical orientation of a typeface.

As you can see from the example below that reads "I have good posture," the letter forms are nice and straight. Conversely, where it reads "I have bad posture," the letters are slanted towards the right.

A type of posture which slants to the right is called italic. The italic typefaces are created by type designers as opposed to a machine, so not all typefaces have italics.

As simple as italic type seems, it is still quite carefully crafted and designed. Below you can see an example of normal, italic, and manually slanted type.

Normal is the standard type as far as posture goes; italic is the italic version. Slanted type has been manually slanted, as opposed to designed that way, like italic type.

When the letters appear skewed, readability may suffer, as certain character design elements are not intended to be slanted.

You can see that the letter A in italic has been completely redesigned from normal type, as have the letters T and I.

If you compare the slanted version of the I, you'll notice that it is thinner, and the A is more difficult to read because it's not as clear.

The A is similar between the italic and slanted versions, but there are still some differences in shape and proportion that could affect readability.

terms to know

Posture

The vertical orientation of a typeface; some typefaces slant to the right (italic).

Italic

A type posture; type which appears to slant to the right.

Readability

How easily words and blocks of words can be read.

2. Script

Script is a type classification developed in the late 1700s and originally based on handwriting.

This style is characterized by italic letter forms that can be formal or casual and sometimes joined. Member families include Nuptial and Zapfino.

You can see from the example below that script does, in fact, have that handwritten quality.

While it's usually styled quite nicely, it's not the best type for large bodies of text, like books, magazines, or newspapers.

Here is the film script from the movie Django.

You can see how difficult reading would be if the script were written in, well, script.

Even zoomed in, there is still no readability.

term to know

Script

A type classification developed in the late 1700s and originally based on handwriting; characterized by italic letterforms that can be formal or casual and sometimes joined. Member families include Nuptial and Zapfino.

3. Decorative Type

Decorative type is a group of novelty or illustrative typefaces used primarily for headlines or initial capital letters.

If you take a look at the example below, you can see how decorative type is different from script.

Decorative type is a lot more illustrative, but not as practical in many uses. Thus, it is oftentimes tailored for a specific use in projects. However, it can work well for headlines or other attention-grabbing text.

Another good use for decorative type is the initial capital letter, which is the first letter of the first word in a paragraph. The initial capital letter is enlarged to the height of several lines which surround it.

EXAMPLE

Remember classic storybooks? Those books often used a large capital letter to start off the word in the first paragraph; from that point on, the books used more legible text.

terms to know

Decorative Type

Novelty or illustrative typefaces used primarily for headlines or initial capital letters.

Initial Capital Letter

The first letter of the first word in a paragraph; often decorative, it is enlarged to the height of several lines which surround it.