Conjunction junction, what’s your function?

“Meet me at the coffee shop at 10”

Do you think that the word ‘at’ is as crucial as the words ‘meet me’? Does the word ‘the’ have the same importance to the message equal to the words ‘coffee shop’?

No. Is this now going to sound like an English lecture - a wee bit, but not really.

If we take a moment to consider the words that are required to get the salient points across, such as: Meet me, coffee shop and10, then we can conclude that the words left over are superfluous. Yet, in speaking correctly, one needs to add in these conjunctions, so that the sentences are properly inked, sound fluid and create less choppiness.

Therefore, as a designer I conclude that when designing with language, especially for titles and headings, these small inconsequential words not be given the same import as the words getting the message across.

In this video - Conjunction Junction by School House Rock (charming), you will be entertained better than by me, as a meaning to demonstrate some examples - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AyjKgz9tKg

…. and there’s more ….

Here is another example in the Disney film title Lion King. It demonstrates well a graphic solution maximizing the meaningful words and minimizing the trivial one.

On the cover of the book I am reading, you can see the title treatment and how the designer assessed which words were pertinent to the meaning of the book title and which were not - hence this final literary visual appeal you see below.

Notice the size of the conjunctives - the, of, and - they are present but are significantly smaller in point size. What this does is force our eyes to focus on - BOOK, MADNESS, CURES and in doing so suggests that these 3 words are the most important to read, absorb and comprehend. Notice also that the graphic altering of the 2 different word groups, the nouns and the conjunctives, are typographically treated with contrasting distinction - in size, and in capitalization (or not). ps - good book

Although the graphic treatment of conjunctives do not attract the most scrutiny during the design process, I feel that a successful solution considers all the details, even the small ones.

These kinds of visual details are the ones our eyes trip on without us even knowing it. It may even delay the process of completing the project. Don’t let that happen.