Typography

Lohr (2008) defines instructional typography as the art and science of using individual letters words, and passages of text to convey an instructional message. The four examples of typography above were created for fifth grade math students for use with a unit on adding and subtracting decimals. When creating the images, I chose fonts I believed would be easy to read for my students when viewed either on a poster or computer screen. For addition, common and fraction, I chose sans serif fonts for their legibility on a computer screen. According to Lohr (p. 221), "many consider sans serif type more legible for computer-based instruction or presentation". Although this claim has not been supported by research, I find in this case, the sans serif was a good choice for my project. 

Originally, when I created the typography for common, both words were the same shade of black. I felt since the words were representing something shared or the same, the words themselves should be different. I offset the words slightly to create a shadow, emphasizing the m, the letter both words shared.

In my user test, both responses were positive. In each case the user understood the meaning of the word and felt the typography would improve student understanding of each word. 

References

Lohr, Linda L. (2008). Creating graphics for learning and performance, second edition. Pearson: Upper Sadle River, NJ.