At the threshold of the digital era, Zuzana Licko was of the opinion that familiar letterforms owe legibility to centuries-long exposure and that all new, prototypically unmatching forms would be equally legible if used as frequently. This paper examined the legibility in the context of familiarity – is it affected by the time of exposure to a particular typeface or a typeface’s universal structure. We ran repeated measures tests with exposure period in-between. The experiment was conducted using for this purpose designed typefaces as stimuli, and the eye-tracking on-screen reading technology. The results confirmed that one’s familiarity with a typeface influences one’s reading speed. The universal letter structure, recognised by Frutiger as the prototype skeleton, is the constant that a priori provides legibility. On the other hand, the period of exposure to uncommon letterforms also has a positive impact on legibility. Therefore, considering that the period of familiarity with the humanist letterforms has been continuous since their establishment, the maxim from the dawn of the digital era can be regarded as valid.

Among its many roles, typography also serves to make a text more legible and readable, allowing the reader to follow the content flow with more ease. Typographic hierarchy, in turn, with its use of different logical and visual tools, serves to establish an order of importance of different text elements. To emphasize certain elements – i.e. create eye-catchers, typographers usually resort to making bigger and bolder items. In this paper we wish to examine whether white space can also serve as a means of emphasis. While several studies have already proven that white space influences consumer perception in advertising, no one has yet investigated the effects of white space on text scanning. With that in mind, we examined whether white space could contribute to the effectiveness and speed of text scanning. We used eye-tracking technology to collect accurate quantitative and visual data. Although the results did not show that white space has a positive effect on scanning speed or text structure memorability, we have noted a difference in the eye-movement pattern, which raises hope and leads us to believe that further research is needed.