Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS4
Involves: No tools whatsoever - it's all about looking at text and composition
Translatable: Yes
Steps: Zero
Difficulty: Basic

Janie's Guide to Text - Part One

Hello everyone, welcome to my ~~guide to~~ monologue on text. Part One.

In my Guide to Negative Space, I mention that negative space is my favourite thing about icon making. But I'm happiest when my negative space lends itself to text use.

In this guide I will be talking about how I use text. I will talk about composition, making text fit with its background and, of course, my favourite fonts. The first part of this guide has to do with the ways of looking at text. How can we use it? In a later part, I will also spend time on how to make what you have in your head happen and share my favourite fonts with you. If this is something you are interested in, come on in!

"What do you want from me?!" the text yells
We often hear that a picture is worth a thousand words. And I suppose we wouldn't love icon-making as much as we do if we didn't believe that was at least partly true. But using text on graphics is a way to enhance the graphic. Text itself is a graphic form, just look at the countless examples of breathtaking word art.

Text on icons takes many different forms. Sometimes it works and sometimes it very much doesn't. In those last cases, you're probably pulling out your hair, screaming "WHYYY??!!!" at yourself or your graphics programme. Or, if you're not as dramatic as I am, you're just annoyed at the text not coming together the way you had in mind.

Needless to say, I've been annoyed. A lot. I still frequently agonise over the tilt of a letter or the spacing of a barely legible word. What helps is thinking about the different kinds of text on icons. Or rather, about the aim of the text and the placing of it.

If this sounds terribly odd or highly pretentious, please consider the next few categories. They are by no means definitive or exclusive, but it helps me compartmentalise the ways I use text.

First it might help to decide if you want your text to be the main feature of your icon or if you want to use it in a different way. Compare it to the Oscar categories for Best actress in a leading role and Best actress in a supporting role. You might want to use your text to support something in your icon, but it can still end up stealing the show. Please keep that in mind when reading the rest of this.

Fifty-fifty

firstillusion,

queensjoy

The easiest category to define is the one where the balance of text and image is pretty much fifty-fifty. We all know them: wonderful images we know just how to crop, but they're not going to fill up our 100x100 pixel canvas. One way of giving those cut-off images extra impact is adding text.

Granted, this way of using text often looks quite choppy. Which is understandable, because image and text are fighting for dominance and the viewer doesn't immediately know what they are supposed to look at first.

Text as the star of your icon

Text that fills up most of your space

firstillusion,

_puchula_,

_puchula_,

fuuurs,

appleindecay

erzsebet,

surrexi,

krazykate2,

sarisafari,

sky_magenta

This category is deceptive, because at first you think the text is filling up most of the space and therefore 'disrupts' the image. What it often does, however, is draw your eye to a detail of the image. The text is definitely the star of the icon, but there is a reason the maker didn't make it a text-only icon.

Now we move closer to the area where star and supporting actress are starting to come together. It might no longer be glaringly obvious who gets paid the big bucks this movie, but what is clear is that the leading lady would not be able to shine without that one supporting actor highlighting all her awesomeness. Okay, lame, but some icons clearly benefit from text.

I have two categories that have to do with sight-lines/looking lines. I'm not sure if this is a proper English word, but I'm using it anyway. I know I tend to ramble about how the best icons are the ones that make the eye travel across it. Sometimes this is a rough diagonal, horizontal or vertical line, but sometimes it has a zigzag or another shape.

Well, text can be used to enhance those looking lines. Or it can be used to deliberately cut through the image's looking line and become a new focal point where the eye rests (for a moment). Because this might sound confusing, let me give you some examples:

Text enhancing the looking line

In the first icon, the text creates a diagonal from Amy and Rory and the car in the bottom left corner up to the text in the top right corner. Without the text, the eye would've been stuck on Amy and Rory because the sky has no other texture. Without text, it would not necessarily be a bad icon, but the text definitely makes it a far more interesting one.

The same goes for the second icon. Amelia is standing at the bottom of the stairs, which we can see moving to the top of the image diagonally. By putting text to the left of Amelia in a light colour (the same colour as the bannister) the looking line is elongated across the icon. Without the text, the bottom left corner would've been dark and the looking line would've stopped at Amelia.

Some more examples from people who show it much better than I do:

00mina,

appleindecay,

naginis,

fuuurs

naginis,

raiindust,

juanxyo,

fuuurs

See how all the looking lines except for the second one are diagonal? If the maker of the fourth icon had placed the text higher and on one horizontal line, the curve of Cher's body wouldn't have been followed. By placing the text alone that curve, the text follows the image. Conversely, the line on the image of the sixth icon runs from the top right corner to the left bottom corner. But by adding the text,

raiindust has created a looking line for us starting at Ron's face and going down the icon to the text. Something similar goes for the first icon. Without the text, we would've seen Amy's pale face on the right side and then a whole lot of hair. Which is extremely pretty, but not as interesting as it is now.

Text to create a 'zigzag' looking line
It can also be the other way around. Maybe you don't want one straight line for the eye to travel across, maybe you want several points of focus. Text can help create that curve:

jam_min,

absolutelybatty,

firstillusion,

lessrest

rabidline,

solar_contrast,

feel_the_fire,

quiddity_

In these icons, the text provides either a new focal point out of the looking line, creating some sort of zig-zag (icons 2-4) or it forms a resting point for the eye, a sort of anchor. With the three standing figures, the sixth icon seems quite vertical, but the text has been placed on a horizontal line, creating a whole new image.

You might think I am talking out of my shapely behind or that I'm thinking waaaaaay too much about lines that aren't even there, but this is just the way I look at text icons.

Because the lines between 'star' and 'supporting role' are so blurry, I'll move away from the looking lines and give you a few more categories to consider:

The OTP text
Text can also stand out like above, but be more integrated in the icon:

firstillusion,

firstillusion,

firstillusion,

absolutelybatty,

blue_emotion

blue_emotion,

calrissian,

fuuurs

firstillusion,

firstillusion

Text in a supporting role

The text is visible, but it's not immediately your point of focus

firstillusion,

firstillusion,

firstillusion,

firstillusion

firstillusion,

erzsebet,

firstillusion,

appleindecay

Text is practically part of the image itself/becomes a graphic element on its own:

fuuurs,

pamkips,

calrissian,

pamkips

sesperia,

appleindecay,

pamkips,

pamkips

And text as a (purely) decorative element

systematichabit,

firstillusion,

pamkips,

firstillusion,

fuuurs

firstillusion,

pamkips,

fuuurs,

pamkips,

fuuurs

The text in these last icons isn't necessarily trying to convey words or even a message to us. It's clearly different from the previous category, because although the letters can still make up a rather important part of the icon, we are hardly ever supposed to be reading something into it. Tiny text, like in icons 1, 2 and 4, can be written by the icon maker to match the subject or the atmosphere of the icon, but it's not longer large enough for the words they chose to have impact on the viewer. For some makers, this way of using text helps them with their horror vacui (fear of the empty). It can definitely be an interesting way to spice up your icon.

Summing it up
Generally, I ask myself two questions about the text I want to use on an icon:

1) Do I want my text to steal the show?
2) Do I want my text to enhance the looking line or create a new shape?

Based on those two main questions, I can fill in all the details that are specific to the image.

Comparing these different ways text can be used has helped me use it more effectively. I also spend less time on it, because I generally know which effect I'm going for. That doesn't mean text is always planned or ends up the way you wanted it. These categories aren't anything except my own method of understanding text. Who is to say they make sense to anyone else?

And to illustrate that point, here are some examples of text that defy most of what I just shared with you, but where the text is so very special: