Readability & Legibility

During the first term, we spent a whole two weeks doing a legibility and readability project. We were given the task to research into both, and then write a very small written piece, on both of them, their similarities, and differences. 

At first I found it quite difficult to get my head around the two, but after doing a lot of research I managed to differentiate the two. I realised that they both have completely different meanings and outcomes with typography but they are both as equally as important.

They are both based around text and they link in with each other hugely which is why some people may find it difficult to distinguish the two.

These two pictures, I found on Google, are what very much helped my understanding of readability and legibility. 

It was the mainly the difference between these two pieces of text that brought me to the realisation of how important readability is. These paragraphs both consist of the same words; the only difference is the font and the spacing between the lines. The one on the left is 'Times New Roman' whereas the other is "Helvetica', When reaching the end of each line, it was easier to identify the next line when reading from the 'Times New Roman' text. I found that I read it a lot quicker compared to the other one, I found it was a lot easier to read and the writing generally flowed better. The Helvetica piece of text, although the letters are easy to understand, the spaces between the lines somehow caused difficulty and problems towards how well the writing flowed. This immediately gave me a clear understanding of how to identify good readability, and how important it is to take into consideration when writing.

I was very pleased we were given this project, as I feel that I have learnt a lot, and have gained new knowledge and understanding of a very important subject in 'Graphic Design'.