picas & points vs. inches

[margarita]

Is one more appropriate than the other in the design workplace?

[morea]

I suppose it is a matter of preference. Personally, I use inches for print work and pixels for web design.

[Patrick Shannon]

In print, if I need to measure something really, really "fine," I'll use points or picas. Otherwise, it's inches.

Is this thread in the right place?

[morea]

good point, Patrick. Thread moved to general section.

[MD]

I prefer inches - your finished product is going to be in inches why bother converting? For web work I use pixels.

[margarita]

I needed the perspective. My art director says that graphic designers use picas & points as the standard and keeps being frustrated (but at least in good humor) because I work in inches (yes, print work). If Quark just moved the measurement preference to a different spot, maybe she wouldn't have to be frustrated. I think picas & points was a different era.

[PrintDriver]

I never use picas.
For print I use points for both fonts and line weights but inches for sizing boards and images.
I use inches for everything when doing signs and 3D work.

I think it's all a matter of what you used while in school. I can judge type better in points but my coworker uses inches. We both get the job done and that's what it really is all about.

[Pica]

Definitely a matter of personal preference. I like picas (guess that's obvious) because it's what I used in my first design job with a newspaper. I also like working with whole numbers instead of decimals most of the time.

The best reason I've heard to use points and picas instead of inches is that it's the system on which your font and leading measurement is based. So it wouldn't matter much when you're designing a logo or business card or CD cover, but when you're trying to align columns with text-wrapped graphics and/or photos in things like newspaper, magazine or brochure design, it can really make a difference.

Check out http://photoshop.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000600029679/ for a good explanation with visuals.

[Mitch Wood]

Bit late, but...

...there is only one way of measuring page sizes...

...metric (well millimeters)


I just don't know how you guys work in inches and the respective fractions.

Deffo points for type.

[chalsema]

I use points and picas for the same reason as Pica. I don't like having to use decimals and fractions. I'm bad at math :P

[Broacher]

Most basic (layout grids, in particular) design math is by real fractions: halves, quarters, thirds, sixths. Or, their inverse: doubles, triples, quads, etc. And line depth is nearly always the underlying determinant unit. Points and picas for layout work here.

Unfortunately, North American paper standards are mostly in inches. PLUS, Photoshop sizing readouts don't handle Pica/Pt combos like AI and ID do (no mixing: either all points, or all picas.) Why? I dunno. It's a dumb relic that needs fixing. Anyhow, my photo work tends to be done in inches.

As for metric-- that was invented by the hyper-rational post-revolutionists in France who even went so far as to try and force metric time on people (forget it). Very useful in the rocket and chemistry labs, I'm sure-- but a crazy choice if you work in more human mathematical relationships. Course, that's just my humble opin.

[wienerdog]

I had to take a test for a staffing agency, and the whole project was in picas and points. I was totally frazzled. I thought everyone uses inches for layout, guides, etc. and points for type and width of strokes for lines.

[chalsema]

As long as you know how to convert picas to inches then you can easily work in either one or both at the same time. (Pictures in inches and layout in picas and points is how I do it.) 12 points in a pica and 6 picas in an inch.

[Broacher]

And handy to remember that cucumbers sound bigger when they're described in picas.

[chalsema]

LOL... indeed they do!

[LeftBrain Artist]

Points and picas, metric or standard, ciceros and agates - which one is preferred? Traditionally, for design, of course its points and picas - based on a measuring system which originally defined a point by the size of a period. Is this preferred? Sometimes. Is one more accurate than the other? No. Alternate measuring scales are relics of a past where it was part of protecting one's trade to create obscure, complicated systems which made comprehension by outsiders more difficult, and made the job of the tradesman easier (in typesetting, a system of measurement finer that the inch was called for). For this reason alone it actually might not be a bad idea to eliminate the use of standard and metric systems in mainstream graphic design. Though I doubt it will happen, I like inches - they're like a comfy chair. I dont want to sit on the point stool. Ouch.

[Crimson]

I think metrics would be kool. Dividing by ten is easier than 12. You can feel like your going Faster (Kilometers). Anybody who is 2 meters tall is a big person. I could convert if everyone else did. Other than that Points on a page size get's to big. I layout in Inches and use points for type and lines.

[Mynock]

I do all my graphics in hands, just how I measure horses.

[vtwin_gary]

And handy to remember that cucumbers sound bigger when they're described in picas.

and even bigger in points!

my cucumber is over 400 points long

http://www.cnas.smsu.edu/labimages/Biology/Bio122/images/Week%203%20images/cucumber.jpg

[PrintDriver]

Is that the 'cucumber' Broach had in mind?

You can work in tens if you work in 1:10. 1" = 10". Works good in mural files when allowed by vendor. Just remember the output is 1000% and you'll be ok.

[Broacher]

>>Anybody who is 2 meters tall is a big person<<

See? This illustrates the 'inhumanity' of the metric system. How about someone who is 1/3 that height? Or 1/4 less? With a combined base 8/12 system of feet and inches, these kind of divisions are easy to make. Or estimation: the witness says that the attacker was 1.8 metres tall, or about five foot ten. Which would you feel more comfortable making? Because we tend to think in fractions of a standard unit, inches make much more sense because so few of us can relate to dividing things 'visually' in our heads by units of ten. When you estimate a length, you might say to yourself, "hm... the length of that sign is about two and a bit times it's width. How much 'bit'? Well, less than a half, but more than a quarter." How many would say, "it's about .35" in one glance. Visual division is just more intuitively accurate by halfs and thirds than tenths because of this difference.

Just my two centidollars worth.

[CatintheHat1]

At the newspaper it was a pica world. Would have died without my pica ruler. When I opened my own biz I soon switched to inches 'cause that's what Americans use, however I'm Canadian, so everything here is done in millimetres, which my UK and Aussie clients use. I'm terrible at math, too....I basically have to use my fingers and toes to do some layouts..hehe.

Cat

[chalsema]

I love this website: http://online.unitconverterpro.com/
Quick, easy conversions if you're in doubt about your own math skills. ;)

[Broacher]

>>however I'm Canadian, so everything here is done in millimetres<<

Not here it ain't. In fact, I can't remember I heard any printer, or other designer give me specs in metric. Where are you?

[Eggles1]

Picas make no sense to me whatsoever, and having read that article someone linked to earlier, now I understand why. They are a division of the inch. The majority of the world - sorry americans (and canadians?) - do not use inches for measurement, so using picas in layouts is as foreign to me as using inches (and no doubt vice versa for those using inches - just try doing a layout in mm and you will start to understand how using picas is almost impossible for someone using the metric system).

The metric system uses centimetres (cm) or millimetres (mm). There are 10 mm to the cm, 100 cm to the metre etc. and 25.4mm are equal to one inch. Because the mm is such a tiny distance (1 millimetre is equal to 0.03937 inches) you can see we don't have to worry about using decimals very much. The smallest decimal I would probably ever use would be 0.5mm - any smaller and it is pointless. I have never understood how people who aren't mathematicians ever get their head around the decimal equivalent of 1/16" (0.0625"), which is close enough to 1.5mm. See - no stupid four decimal places. No wonder there are problems for metric users in the transform palette in Illustrator.

Funny thing is I cannot easily convert 300 pixels per inch into its metric equivalent, so I usually have to change the Photoshop Image dialogue box to recognise this.