I. Hawaiian Punctuation:
`okinas and kahakōs
II. Identifying &
Finding Fonts
III. Design Basics: Contrast
and Consistency?
IV. Website Update: Back
Issues Online
V.
Do You Want to Receive The Graphics Grapevine?
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I. Hawaiian Punctuation:
`okinas and kahakōs
Hawaiian
residents are accustomed to seeing 'okinas (glottal stops) and kahakōs
(macrons) in the written Hawaiian language. The 'okina looks like an
inverted comma and indicates a break "similar to the sound between the oh's in
the English oh-oh" according to Pukui and Elbert's Hawaiian
Dictionary. Vowels marked with kahakōs are always stressed
and held somewhat longer than other
vowels.
How do we incorporate these pronunciation guides into our
documents? If you happen to be running a
Macintosh OS 10.2 or higher, the complete Hawaiian alphabet is already
available to you. Macintosh has added an option to the computer's internal
"keyboard" that allows users to type in 'okinas and
kahakōs.
Alternately, a number of free Hawaiian fonts can be
downloaded from the University of Hawaii at Hilo website www.olelo.hawaii.edu/resources/fonts
along with a special "keyboard" that allows you to insert `okinas and
kahakōs into your text. If you are printing
documents from a computer that has these systems installed, you should
be good to go. However, if you intend to share your documents, the target
computer must also have these components installed for your
punctuation to transfer properly.
If your need for Hawaiian
punctuation is limited (for me it's primarily place names) you might want
to consider these work-arounds:
An `okina of sorts can be found on the standard keyboard, above the tab
key (or on my laptop it's to the right of the F12 key). This symbol (`) is
technically called a "grave accent" and is sometimes used as an
opening single quote. Position your cursor and press that key as you would
for any other
punctuation.
The kahakō
is a little trickier. My workaround
is saving a set of vowels with kahakōs, Ā Ē Ī Ō Ū ā ē
ī ō ū, a "toolbar" of sorts that I can paste into an active Word or
email document where it's handy. From there I can copy
a specific, already-punctuated vowel from the toolbar and paste it into the
text where needed. I delete the toolbar before printing or sending my
document.
To save
this "toolbar" yourself, copy the line below and paste it where you
can access it again easily. I keep mine in a Word document on my
desktop.
You
can change the font selection within limits, as many specialty fonts do not
have a complete character set available. To create your own toolbar
"from scratch" in Word, go to the Insert dropdown menu and
select Symbol. Select your font (or convert
it later if you choose) then select Latin Extended-A for the subset.
Select the vowels one at a time in both upper and lower
case: Ā Ē Ī Ō Ū ā ē ī ō ū
To go a step further, you can
assign shortcut keys to these vowels-with-kahakōs. For example you could
set it up so that typing ALT + "a" would give you ā and
typing ALT + SHIFT + "a" would give you Ā., For complete
instructions, visit http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/eng/resources/wordxp.html.
II. Identifying
and Finding 
One thing that attracts many of us to computer
graphics is the giant selection of typestyles available. Besides
the many fonts that come bundled with computer software
applications, tens of thousands of fonts apart from the usual cast of
characters (pun intended) can be puchased online and downloaded on the spot.
It's easy to get carried away in the online "candy
store".
Some websites allow you to type in your business
name, event name, book title, etc. and see how it looks in any of
their thousands of typestyles. You can search by font name, foundry
or by category, including: rustic, brush script, handwriting, grunge,
outline, shaded, engraved, stencil and decorative, to name a few. The two online
resources below also offer a font identification
service. If you have your heart set on a certain typestyle and you don't know
its name or what type foundry produced it, you can send in a sample for their
sleuths to identify for you at no charge.
www.myfonts.com
41,396 fonts from 219 foundries "What the Font?!" allows you to upload a
digital scan or photo of the font via their website. www.philsfonts.com/findfonts 35,000
fonts from over 75 foundries. Offers font identification service by fax or
email.
Two resources to explore for free fonts
are
Note: Free fonts are sometimes knock-offs of high
quality foundry fonts and often do not contain the full character set. Some
will not convert to .pdf format due to licensing issues or will behave
unpredictably in certain situations. But hey, they're free! Typing "free fonts"
into a search engine like Google will give you a head-spinning number of
additional resources.
Keep in mind that a plain font can be enhanced
with shading, shadowing and 3-D effects in an illustration program to
create a one-of-a kind logotype, with or without a tagline, as in the
example below. The "WordArt" feature in Microsoft Word also gives you
some options for punching up your text. (Insert/Picture/WordArt)
III. Design Basics:
Contrast and Consistency?
In the April 2004 issue we touched on the topic of white
space as an essential design principle. In this issue we look at how
both contrast and consistency play a role in good design.
While it may seem a contradiction to go for both "different" and "alike" at
the same time, contrast gives design its visual punch
while consistency brings the pieces together into a solid
whole.
With contrast we seek to provide variety and stimulation.
You can create interest for the reader's eye by juxtaposing elements that are
large and small, light and dark, bold and subtle. You can use contrasting
colors, typestyles, shapes and textures. Too many contrasting
elements, however, lead to a busy, cluttered look. Use
sparingly.
Repetition, meanwhile, helps create a cohesive
layout. You can help the reader feel "at home" by using consistent margins,
line spacing, alignment, headings, fonts, and
colors. You can echo specific design elements such as a star shape, or
more general characteristics such as roundness or boldness. The principle of
consistency is important not just within an individual design layout but
across a business's logo, letterhead, business cards, brochures, web site,
signage, logowear, etc. (See "Your Graphic Identity" in the January 2004 issue
for more on this topic.)
