Picas or Inches (cm)

[clicky2]

Man ... I fell old.

Picas, points ... all standard print measurments over a century old. Typically used in typesetting.

1pt = 1px (not originally, but that's the way it pans out in digital measurments). 12pts = 1pica. 6pica or 72points = 1 inch.

[admedia]

whats the point in using them in other aspects of design where pixels, inches/cm/mm have all aspects covered?

Because there is no correlation between mm/cm/inches and pixels / points.
there is with Picas.

Also I am used to working with inches so usually everything like bleeds and spacing, margins, etc... is in 1/4, 1/8 or 1/16 of inches.... or decimals... .25, .125, .0625.. I hate those...

so I figure a Pica (or 1/6 of an inch) is a nice dimension. I will just use that instead of fractions of inches for layouts now.
Now my world seems simpler.
2, 1, 0p6. That's making more sense to me.

[krona]

Heh. Just realised: 12 points is equal to 1 pica, right? It's probably derived from the measurement Pico, which is 10^-12 (one trillionth).

[wouter999]

I design in mm for print, but then again if I'm printing huge artworks, like big advertisements, I usually go for cm's. On one occasion the canvas was so huge, I had to make it in 20*5meters.

Fonts in points though. Always.

[dlowe93]

Because there is no correlation between mm/cm/inches and pixels / points.
there is with Picas.

Also I am used to working with inches so usually everything like bleeds and spacing, margins, etc... is in 1/4, 1/8 or 1/16 of inches.... or decimals... .25, .125, .0625.. I hate those...

so I figure a Pica (or 1/6 of an inch) is a nice dimension. I will just use that instead of fractions of inches for layouts now.
Now my world seems simpler.
2, 1, 0p6. That's making more sense to me.

Uh oh. Once picas start to make sense, it's all over.

Way back in the dark ages, i started in print production, and i swore by picas. It's a much more accurate measurement system, and much easier once you understand it (divide 11" by 3, or 66p by 3).

I traded picas for pixels years ago, but every now and then i do some print, and it's all about picas.

d.

[jasonsplace]

I have taken 3 or 4 Desktop Publishing classes throughout my schooling and all have required us to use Pica's while designing.

[admedia]

I traded picas for pixels years ago, but every now and then i do some print, and it's all about picas.

That's the beauty of it. You don't really have to trade pixels for picas.
It's part of the same system now.

[argonauta]

damn, i don't understand a word of what you guys are saying

[jAQUAN]

I've actually never worked in picas. Strictly inches for docs and points for type. For the web I use all pixels. Illustrator allows for a little math in its pallets so I never had to memorize a lot of conversions. Most all printers deal with a pretty standard set of sizes anyway.

[dlowe93]

That's the beauty of it. You don't really have to trade pixels for picas.
It's part of the same system now.

Yes. Thank you Adobe.

Although my CSS developers get all cranky when i hand them template spec files laid out in picas.

Whatever.

d.

[admedia]

Although my CSS developers get all cranky when i hand them template spec files laid out in picas.

You know it never even occured to me until now
that I can use them in CSS?

nice one!

[jAQUAN]

sometimes I think you can do anything in CSS, just about everytime I cant figure something out, I find that it accepts natively the type of data I was trying to fake anyway.