Don't let the size of the so called "agate"(type set 6 points or smaller) fool you.
When it comes to heavy traffic and high visibility, the content that is usually set in small type plays an important role.
Consider for a moment, what your newspaper would be without sports results. Start counting the number of complaints you would get from business people if you stopped running stock listings and other updatable financial data.
Not to mention the number of readers who plan their weekend activities around the entertainment section's calendar offerings, or who decide to visit a restaurant or museum after they saw it mentioned in, yes, very small type.
I refer to all of these areas of the newspaper -- or the magazine -- as "finger reading."
I have observed in focus groups and eye tracking tests that readers tend to run their fingers over the page when they search out these items, something they don't usually do when reading a narrative set in 8 or 10 point. And do those fingers move! It's a combination exercise, where the eyes look for a place to stop -- as in a category header like Movies --while the finger "drives" the eye there. Fingers and eyes in unison, doing the moving. The designer must always pay special attention to how small type is designed and allocated.
Perhaps the most monumental project for highlighting finger reading was The Wall Street Journal, where many pages are simply that: finger reading of business statistics.
Some tips:
• Always select the most legible typeface; sans serifs definitely do better than serifs here. For the WSJ we picked Retina, but many other sans serifs do the job as well.
• Beware of the importance of category breakers, and make them slightly larger, bolder, and maybe all capital letters. For example: BOXING, TENNIS, or FILMS, PLAYS.
• Even though many may think that the Internet presents results and statistics better than print, readers would not want their "finger reading" transferred elsewhere.
--All or a portion of this column was originally published in the IFRA newsletter.
