Words: read and interpreted. Type: seen, read, and interpreted.

Designer as Typographer as Interpreter

The designer is not just the obedient deliverer of a message but,

1. an interpreter where interpretation is central to the idea of communication.

2. a visual communicator

   1. to make information more attractive, more noticed, more read

   2. to enhance the tone of a message

   3. to make the message more legible, more readable

   4. to improve comprehension, retention

   5. to achieve emphasis of key points in a message

3. a problem solver

   1. employing the appropriate typeface and weaving it into a design well suited for the message, media, and audience

Some of the “nondesigned” typography will have been made with commercial or political intent, some will be serendipitous, or simply caused by neglect. In older districts, the pedestrian can often find ad hoc remnants of businesses from previous generations, providing clues of past political and/or industrial upheaval. Most urban communication will have been the result of optimism: “a good idea,” something new, exciting, and worth shouting about.

In all towns and cities a range of wayfinding signs, locational identity signs, and situational, ad hoc messages can be seen. Some of the signs are rule-governed brandings: corporate logo, name, and associated livery. Other signs are bespoke, one-off signs on fascias and vans, hand-chalked menus, and sale offers.

Effective and attractive handwritten example.

The amateurs’ hand-drawn notice or sign attracts attention because we seem to be naturally drawn to anything different or unexpected. However, signs must attract for the right reason and certainly, in the urban commercial environment, the public are highly attuned to the way messages are relayed to them. A hurriedly drawn (informal) price sign on a market stall will not be perceived to represent a lack of concern by the stallholder for the quality of his fresh fruit, quite the opposite, because immediacy and impermanence are both qualities appropriately associated with fresh food. However, if a permanent (formal) sign, displaying the stallholder’s name for example, is hurriedly (and ineptly) done, its informality will be perceived to be inappropriate. Typography, when bad, is easy to recognize, but difficult to get right.

The long-established department store generally offers a more formal persona (even if it prides itself on friendly service). A less formal method of conveying information can still be initiated for short-term events such as a sale, but this material must be disposed of the moment the event is over, so as to enable the formal presence of the business to be restored.

People understand the effort involved (if not the process) in the production of notices and signs. Something that requires time to plan and then paint or carve, print or build, will generally be considered more formal because it has gone through a process of design, making, and/or manufacture, and is already clearly intended to be in place for a considerable time. The materials chosen are very important in reflecting this. Letterforms bought “off the shelf” and fixed DIY style, either by authoritative organizations or by the individual business entrepreneur, are notorious disasters: M and W mixed up, S upside down, but more commonly, poor spacing.

In the context of hand-lettered signs, newsbills are an anomaly. Until very recently, newsbills were a hand-drawn form of public advertisement for daily newspapers sold on the city streets. It is remarkable that hand-drawn newsbills should have remained in existence for so long, especially because their function was to advertise the products of a highly sophisticated, technology driven, newspaper media industry.

The point, of course, is that the newsbill offers urgent and topical information. The earliest specimens, dating from the beginning of the nineteenth century, contained more than 20 lines of closely printed type in various styles and sizes. Over the years, however, the tendency developed toward shorter, ever more dramatic handwritten headlines that were attention grabbing and readable at a glance. Contemporary newsbills, although printed, have retained the underline and are, in this way, reminiscent of the earlier, handdrawn newsbills.

The need for semi-permanent information, often hurriedly improvised in urban streets, is generally considered to be visual clutter. In an emergency, we are reassured to see order reestablished, usually in the form of standard temporary signs, access inhibited by tape, vehicles with flashing roof lights, and uniformed personnel. Coordination in all these elements is important in providing a sense of order and authority. Disorder is stressful because change to our daily routine forces us to think about activities that we can normally take for granted. It makes us think about what we are doing! Order allows us to form our lives into patterns, to make assumptions, to plan ahead, and use our time efficiently. When a book is opened, the reader is looking for patterns for the very same reasons.

Traffic diversion signs are unpopular because they inevitably represent a disruption or breakdown of a planned journey. However, if such signs are coordinated in their appearance and placement, then they will be perceived to represent a coordinated response to a scheduled event. The driver will assume that this is a planned reroute, rather than an ad hoc, hurried, and perhaps illconceived emergency-induced event. Ad hoc signage is both celebrated and despised, depending on the viewers’ circumstances.

An example of permanent typography.

“Typographic detritus or chance art” is the way that improvised urban information… The interference by people making alternative, spontaneous additions or alterations (disregarding the best intentions of the designer) is both inevitable and a necessary aspect of urban life. Such ephemera may sometimes be ugly, but its purpose is generally to provide a valid source of information, even if it is only for a select few. Small, entirely insignificant information, the detritus of urban life, is just as valuable—more valuable some would argue—to social historians than the results of grand-scale city planning.

It is a very good idea to consider how a text will be perceived (and read) in 10, 20, or 100 years’ time. “Decay is the most powerful medium for the improvement of cities… Decay, not architects, adds the last touches, blackens and peels the stone, applies lichens and cracks, softens the edges, elaborates elaboration, and the hand of man works even better than the forces of nature…” Similarly, a scuffed, well-thumbed book with creased page corners is the consequence of a well-used and truly useful document.

Rhetoric is concerned with those factors that attempt to ensure a predetermined interpretation of factual information. Language is regularly manipulated to achieve such a function and typography can, indeed should, reflect and reinforce the arguments within a given text. For this reason, there is a commonly held prejudice that pejoratively associates rhetoric specifically with deceit and seduction. However, if one believes that language is invariably about debate, upholding a point of view, or simply explaining the facts as one understands them, rhetoric must also be concerned with imagination, with form-giving, and with appropriate use of language to facilitate all forms of social interaction.

In fact, it is difficult to imagine any information that does not involve some degree of interpretation. Our contemporary distinction in typography between information and persuasion reflects historic concerns about the merits of plain and ornamental styles of presentation. Because of this, many typographers believe that information can be presented without ever referring to modes of persuasion. Yet all communication, no matter how prosaic, has interpretable, stylistic qualities that go beyond the stated content of the message, and therefore become ornamental.

Even the choice of typeface, for instance, a decision that is unavoidable, must add something to the reader’s perception and therefore could be described as ornamental. Consequently, the issue that typographers must face relates not to persuasion or the lack of it, but rather to the intentions behind it. So, typographers must question the purpose, the function of the given text, before any typographic decision is made.

Legible typographic design comprises a codirectional concatenation governed by a reader profile that relates to style or visible rhetoric. The profile results from analysis of comprehension levels on age, education, and culture. The term kinetography defines the combined verbal/visible, rhetorical function of typography in technological environments.

The typographer must take three distinct actions to achieve legibility:

1. Analyze and comprehend author’s and editor’s intent.

2. Translate the intention through symbolic reference into typographic signs.

3. Arrange the typographic signs into recognizable and comprehensive gestalts.

Typographic legibility contains the properties of text/images that symbolically represent readability. It forms an integral part of the design algorithms of visible language. Thus, legibility results from an interpretation of readability: a property of text that results from developing verbal language in an easily understandable rhetorical style (verbal language). It requires the expert consideration of a set of infinitely adjustable, concatenated, multivariate, overlapping, geometric modules and complexes that constitute typographic style (visible language).

Typographic designers must possess knowledge of the human elements that relate to the communication process plus the skills that enable them to use electronic tools. The knowledge and ability to interpret readability into legibility derive from a comprehensive education and training in typography and type design. It does not derive as a by-product from using electronic tools.

Almost all human reasoning about facts, decisions, opinions, beliefs, and values is no longer considered to be based on the authority of absolute Reason, but instead, is seen to be intertwined with emotional elements, historical evaluations, and pragmatic motivations. In this sense, the new rhetoric considers the persuasive discourse not as a subtle, fraudulent procedure, but as a technique of ‘reasonable’ human interaction, controlled by doubt and explicitly subject to extra logical conditions.

Umberto Eco — Italian Scholar and Semiotician

So, designing the appearance of any typographic layout involves a degree of rhetoric. The effectiveness of typography depends on the use of marks, symbols, or patterns that are familiar and pertinent for a given audience. A functioning message is one that succeeds in connecting with the habits and expectations of its audience. A conscious rhetorical approach to typography would be one which accedes that all design has social, moral, and political dimensions, that there is no sphere of “pure” information, and accepts the challenge to design typography that is functionally and conceptually appropriate for its purpose.

Alongside this is the recognition of words and the functions of spaces and accompanying punctuation. These essential skills are gained with great effort, but they must, as soon as possible, become automatic; eventually, the reader should not normally be aware of the activity of reading at all.

We also learn the various reading skills necessary for acquiring differing kinds of information. Documents such as directories, catalogs, indices, encyclopedias, flyers, forms, junk mail, etc. require an adjustment to learned reading skills. In effect, we learn how to find and select, and how to respond.

The ability to read quickly and to be able to select in order to use time efficiently depends very much on the order and arrangement of type being normal. Surprises are disruptive to the mechanics of reading.

Despite the thousands of typefaces available today, those typefaces most appropriate for textual setting fall into a narrow category and, on the whole, follow a traditional pattern. Typefaces designed to incorporate old face characteristics are traditionally considered easiest to read (Caslon), transitional are less easy (Baskerville), and modern (Bodoni) are hardest to read. Of course, all are normally perfectly legible, and with careful application all can be made readable (although some less efficiently than others).

Choice of typeface will depend on several factors, including economic, color (the overall tone of gray when set as text), and which characteristics (visual, cultural, historic) best suit the subject matter. In the twentieth century, each change of technology has brought with it new typefaces and the adaptation of older typefaces, some more successful than others. The characteristics commonly required of a readable typeface are openness of form, prominent ascenders and descenders, modeled serifs, and directional momentum.

Today, sans serifs (type without serifs) vary so much in form that one cannot generalize about their readability. The rule was that sans-serif type was less efficient for reading, but better for legibility—initial character recognition—hence its use in early reading books and for signage. Notable efforts have been made to design sans-serif fonts with calligraphic characteristics, providing a distinct left to right emphasis.

Lowercase characters, unlike capitals, are designed to work in close proximity with each other, providing an uninterrupted visual flow, a dynamic left to right momentum, the idea being that the reader’s eye is able to skim, without hesitation, along a line of type, recognizing the essential and distinctively unique shapes of each individual word. Consistency of style must be adhered to if the reader is to feel comfortable. It is not surprising then that the rule for good textual setting is that it should be so predictable, so normal, as to be invisible to the reader (while for display type the opposite must apply).

The oft-repeated truism “a type which is read most is read easiest” only serves to emphasize that the appearance of textual setting, once established, must remain predictable.

The degree to which a typeface is legible is entirely dependent on the designer of the typeface, whereas readability is largely the province of the typographer. Legibility is the degree to which individual letters can be distinguished from each other. Such letterforms are designed to present themselves in a clear and concise manner. This does not necessarily mean that a highly legible typeface cannot also have distinguishing characteristics—some of the most legible examples, such as Johnston’s font for the London Underground, Underground, are also among our most distinctive faces—but it does mean that in the most demanding of environments, their individual forms remain highly visible, essential for those passengers for whom the station names are unfamiliar.

Generally, the most legible typefaces are those with larger, open or closed inner spaces. This inevitably means a generous x-height. However, if the x-height is large, then, as a consequence, the ascenders and descenders will be relatively short. This not only affects the legibility of individual characters (commonly causing, among other pairs, the h and n, and the i and l to be confused with each other), but also makes the recognition of word shapes more difficult.

Large counters (the enclosed and partly enclosed spaces within letters) are particularly important in helping to distinguish between some of the most commonly used characters—e, a, and s; and c and o. These lack distinguishing characteristics (they have no ascenders or descenders, and are all of a similar width and general shape) and contain similarly sized counters.

There is little doubt that, owing to frequency of use, the most helpful aid to legibility in any given typeface is the provision of a generous “eye” for the e and enclosed a generous counter for the a.

The characters most commonly mistaken for each other are i, j, and l; and f and t. In many typefaces the l is also almost identical to the numeral 1, and the letter O to the zero 0. Relative legibility is also affected by the individual size of letters; for instance, m and w are intrinsically more legible than i or l simply because they have a larger presence.

Having considered legibility in terms of distinctive word shapes and definition of structural elements of letters (ascenders, descenders, counters, and serifs), there is a third aspect—that of type size. Using a small size of type, perhaps 6pt or less, will deny the text to a large proportion of the targeted audience. We know, when a small size is unavoidable, then its deficiencies can be minimized by the use of a typeface with a large x-height.

Finally, another condition which governs legibility is tonal contrast, for example, between word and substrate. Naturally, where word and background tone are close, legibility will be affected. What is less obvious is that a text printed black will be more legible on a matte, off-white (cream) colored paper than a gloss high white. The mix of surface shine and high contrast can prove both irksome and tiring.

Like books and other printed things, the overall impression of a map often stems from its typographic design. Often this will be the primary source of critique against it! The type can be too big, too small, to thick, or too thin. Unlike most books, however, maps are multi-layered, complex compositions. The uppermost layer of type often contains the most important information, but must remain legible without covering over too much of the visual detail underneath.

To describe the situation in cartographic design another way, the wrong typeface choice can ruin an otherwise beautiful map! However, even the best typeface design cannot save a map if it is not used properly. A clearly designed hierarchy, using the type in concert with the map’s other elements must be put into place.

Regarding its typographic needs, cartography (maps and plans made for print or screen) is different from traditional print design the following reasons:

1. On maps and plans, text competes with the graphics. In books and magazines, they normally work alongside one another. Text on maps or plans may include place names, descriptions, additional political or geographic info, elevation, and coordinate points.

2. Cartographic text cannot be placed over backgrounds that share the same color as the letters.

3. Cartographic text is also typically placed over many various types of backgrounds – which are usually dark – instead of a common white background, as is the cast with traditional text-based documents.

4. Small text can be difficult to read when placed over complex, textured backgrounds.

5. The eye reads text on a map letter-by-letter, instead of through word shapes.

6. On maps, single lines of text often run across the page diagonally, or on a curve.

7. Type size and style changes quite a lot on maps.

8. Much map text is set in quite small point sizes.

Because of these differences, typefaces designed for use in cartography must meet the following standards:

1. The typeface must be legible in small sizes.

2. At the same time, the typeface must also be slightly narrow, to avoid line lengths running too long.

3. The different styles and weights of the typeface must be clearly differentiated from one another.

4. Individual letters must also all appear different from one another, to help minimize misreadings and misunderstandings.

5. The typeface must be able to form good word shapes, which will also directly increase legibility.

The problem is that theory has no direct bearing upon efficiency, profit margins, or any other measurable means of recording its influence. Therefore, all things theoretical, in a commercial context, are seen as having no value. To those practicing typography, the unorthodox pronouncements of, for example, sociologists, linguists, or psychologists upon the subject can be galling, especially when the concluding statement is that “… typography is too important to be left to typographers.”

Statements such as this occur because the practice of typography has been kept separate from the theory of typography. A statement such as “… science is too important to be left to scientists” is, after all, unthinkable. Why has the theory and practice of typography, and other areas of visual communication, not been more effectively combined to provide mutual support?

The practice of typography has, traditionally, been bound up with craft; a physical, tactile process, requiring a highly specialized range of skills that have both isolated and defended the activity of the typographer (printer and compositor) from “outsiders.” This defence crumbled with the digital revolution in the 1980s. Since then, theoretical studies relating to typography (and, in fact, all aspects of visual communication) have grown rapidly and quite separately from its practical study in the studio.

Many university art history departments renamed themselves departments of visual culture because the original title simply did not take account of the expanding syllabus. Today, visual culture includes advertising, fashion, film, photography, radio, retail, television, web sites, and the Internet (many of which require significant input from a typographer).

A concern some typographers have with theoretical analysis is that it sets out to objectify its subject. Attempting to explain the magic of esthetics, inspiration, and creativity might be viewed as being deeply antagonistic, and, perhaps, even dangerous. It is as though understanding might break the spell and allow the subject to be appropriated by the uninitiated. Bearing in mind the current democratization of typography, perhaps this is not surprising. In the circumstances, a certain amount of resentment by typographers is understandable. But with complete power over what the theorist can theorize about, the causes of this suspicion suggest something else. Especially when it is remembered that theory must always wait for the creation of the next typographic document to ruminate over before the theoretical prognosis can progress.Theory is dependent upon practice.

Perhaps it is because theory is communicated via spoken and written language, which is very different from the way typography tends to be taught in art schools which places the emphasis on visual communication. And yet, during the design process, thinking and talking are both closely bound up with practice and generally encouraged. Despite this, for many practicing typographers, the notion that design might be an intellectual process carries with it negative overtones. This may be a reflection of its craft-based roots. The term heard most often in studios is “professional,” defining the typographer as a solver of real problems and so aligning the activity of the typographer with the rational, realistic-culture of business and commercial enterprise. It is not surprising then that the growth and development of typographic theory as a subject has been led by academics in humanity departments.

There is a persistent view among typographers and other specialists in the field of visual communication, that without practical expertise it is presumptuous in the extreme for someone to expound upon the subject. And yet, when design principles and methodologies (which might have been refined over a lifetime) are to be discussed, it would be understandable if the theorist thought it appropriate to describe such work using a mode of language that reflects the complexity of the subject. And yet, practitioners then complain that the theorist is, quite purposely, making the text difficult. Baudrillard, in the 1980s, was dubbed an “intellectual terrorist” because his texts were so intimidating. (Of course, it is also possible that an impenetrable text is due entirely to confused thinking or that certain theorists make their writing difficult because they seek a reputation for profundity.)

However, typographers, are also used to working within conventional codes, and most would consider the design of accessible information their first and most important objective. Typographers, therefore, will have little patience with a verbose writing style that appears to camouflage the meaning of the text. What is also surprising to typographers is that the product itself, and the manner of its making, are often entirely subsumed by theoretical and contextual information. So much so that a text about typography will often contain no visual references whatsoever.

The use of DTP in schools as part of the writing process has the potential to provide emphasis to typographic organization. In “publishing” their documents, children are already being asked to consider how it might be used and by whom, to write with a specific purpose in mind through a process that includes drafting and editing. They are also asked to consider what would be an appropriate appearance for the finished document as it is commonplace for children to be asked at school to produce newspapers, magazines, leaflets, advertisements, etc., as a means of exploring various ways of organizing text.

The problem is that for children (and teachers) their general awareness of typography stems from what they are conscious of seeing: what attracts their eye in the environment of the street and shops, on advertising boards, shop fascias, and on packaging, rather than the typography they read every day in newspapers, magazines, and books. For a child looking for ideas to help in the design of, for instance, a newspaper much of what attracts the eye is inappropriate. And even if newspapers were available in the classroom (and one must assume that in such circumstances they would be), these would require a considerable amount of detailed analysis to be of any real benefit. Teachers are given very little guidance about the potential of visual organization to enhance the meaning of text, let alone the finer points of typography.

On the community bulletin board of every village, there will be homemade notices and posters. Most amateur community notices and posters today are produced digitally, and yet, despite the dramatic change of tools and processes, the design of such notices remain remarkably similar to the hand-drawn versions of the 1960s or 1970s: the use of underlining, prodigious use of capitals, important words set at a diagonal, and emphasis provided for key points by the use of speech bubbles or boxes.

The persistent use of underlining is particularly interesting because of its evolution through handwritten, typewritten, and digital document making. In handwriting, it is an almost universal convention to underline headings as a means of providing hierarchic structure. This is easily achieved and will often be done as an afterthought.

For the typist, underlining was one of the few options available to provide emphasis within a typewritten text. Underlining was also used as a convention in copy preparation informing compositors to set type in italic. However, underlined characters were never part of the metal letterpress stock, although it became a possible (but rarely used) option with photo-composition. But in the 1980s and 1990s, it was a far more common sight in printed matter because it was a typing convention and many typists transferred their skills from typewriter to word processing and then to DTP software where underlining is an available option.

The practice of centered arrangements for amateur bulletins and posters has also remained almost universal. Up to (and beyond) the 1960s, amateur guidebooks on lettering would suggest that typographic organization was, above all else, about balance and symmetry. Looking at advertising work up to the 1940s, there was a surprisingly high proportion of material which was essentially symmetrical, but, after World War II, the international advertising industry took America’s lead, and was transformed by more flexible asymmetric arrangements. Today, and since the 1950s in commercial poster design, asymmetric arrangements have been entirely dominant, and yet centered arrangements persistently, and perhaps appropriately, remain the norm, generation after generation, for the traditional, slower pace of life represented on the village community bulletin board.

DTP has also meant that a large amount of material for public display that would previously have been produced by the jobbing printer is produced in people’s homes and offices. However, the technology has not had as big an influence on the actual appearance of local bulletins as might have been expected. With any new technology there is a period of time when the new mimics the conventions of the previous technology. It has, however, rendered the skill of drawing letterforms and applying color unnecessary, and, of course, multiple copies mean that more information can be included.

Last Words

Typography is now something everybody does, although only typographers call it “typography.” For everyone else it is now considered a very common, everyday practice—a manual task requiring virtually no thought whatsoever. Thus, the fundamental significance of typography as an intellectual discipline and as a personal accomplishment has become, and probably always was, something of an enigma. But whereas, in the past, typography and printing were genuinely mysterious activities (commonly referred to as “the black art”), today everyone has access to the same tools, the same hardware and software.

Typography is so familiar, so matter of fact, that most people fail even to acknowledge its existence. In some ways, of course, this is the successful result of its invisible application by generations of printers/typographers. The proof of good typography has nothing to do with technology; it can be judged only in the reading.

With all the current emphasis on technologies, one needs to be constantly reminded that typography is an essential and powerful force for increasing communication effectiveness. That is its essential role. Improved technologies are only means towards that end.

The message needs interpretation… not interpretation as a masquerade of typefaces but interpretation as an evaluation of content. Interpretation in the sense of discovering the message which has been broken up into essential, minor and insignificant thoughts. Interpretation not only in advertising but also in literature, and ideally a close collaboration between form and content.

To bawl and to whisper, quickly and slowly, all these are expressions of verbal communication. Reading matter will also have to bawl and whisper, will have to run and to stroll, will have to emerge quietly and lovingly as esthetic experiences.

Typography lives its own esthetic life next to the functional typography, the typography of messages. We read words and sentences but are not aware of the formal qualities of typefaces as long as letters are lined up in order to convey a message.

Typography need not only be visible and legible. Typography needs to be audible. Typography needs to be felt. Typography needs to be experienced. Typography today does not mean to place, typography today means to portray.

At its best, typography today is a wonderful blend of art and technology. And that is nothing new. It was that way when ideograms were cut in tablets, or letters where chiseled in stone or penned on papyrus or scrolls. We just need to remember that long before today’s technologies were just ideas, and long after they are obsolete, the artist will have to manipulate some technology so that typography will be seen, and read, and understood, and, to be truly effective, be felt.

1. Use proportionally spaced type. Monospaced type was created for typewriters to cope with mechanical limitations that do not affect type set by computers. With electronic type it is no longer necessary to accept the reduction in comprehension that goes with monospaced letters. When every character is the same width, the eye loses valuable cues that help it distinguish one letter from another. For this reason, no book or magazine is set in monospaced type.

   

   If you admire the typewriter look, choose a slab-serif face with proportional widths. Caecilia, Clarendon, Lucida, Officina Serif, Rockwell, and Serifa are in this category.

2. Use typefaces that were designed for books. Both the Supreme Court and the Solicitor General use Century. Professional typographers set books in New Baskerville, Book Antiqua, Calisto, Century, Century Schoolbook, Bookman Old Style and many other proportionally spaced serif faces. Any face with the word “book” in its name is likely to be good for legal work.

   

   Baskerville, Bembo, Caslon, Deepdene, Galliard, Jenson, Minion, Palatino, Pontifex, Stone Serif, Trump Mediäval, and Utopia are among other faces designed for use in books and thus suitable for brief-length presentations.

   Use the most legible face available to you. Experiment with several, then choose the one you find easiest to read. Type with a larger “x-height” (that is, in which the letter x is taller in relation to a capital letter) tends to be more legible. For this reason faces in the Bookman and Century families are preferable to faces in the Garamond and Times families.

   You also should shun type designed for display. Bodoni and other faces with exaggerated stroke widths are effective in headlines but hard to read in long passages.

   Professional typographers avoid using Times New Roman for book-length (or brief-length) documents. This face was designed for newspapers, which are printed in narrow columns, and has a small x-height in order to squeeze extra characters into the narrow space. Type with a small x-height functions well in columns that contain just a few words, but not when columns are wide (as in briefs and other legal papers). When briefs had page limits rather than word limits, a typeface such as Times New Roman enabled lawyers to shoehorn more argument into a brief. Now that only words count, however, everyone gains from a more legible typeface, even if that means extra pages. Experiment with your own briefs to see the difference between Times and one of the other faces we have mentioned.

3. Use italics, not underlining, for case names and emphasis. Underlining masks the descenders (the bottom parts of g, j, p, q, and y). This interferes with reading, because we recognize characters by shape. An underscore makes characters look more alike, which not only slows reading but also impairs comprehension.

4. Put only one space after punctuation. The typewriter convention of two spaces is for monospaced type only. When used with proportionally spaced type, extra spaces lead to what typographers call “rivers”—wide, meandering areas of white space up and down a page. Rivers interfere with the eyes’ movement from one word to the next.

5. Do not justify your text unless you hyphenate it too. If you fully justify unhyphenated text, rivers result as the word processing or page layout program adds white space between words so that the margins line up.

   

6. Do not justify monospaced type. Justification is incompatible with equal character widths, the defining feature of a monospaced face. If you want variable spacing, choose a proportionally spaced face to start with. Your computer can justify a monospaced face, but it does so by inserting spaces that make for big gaps between (and sometimes within) words. The effects of these spaces can be worse than rivers in proportionally spaced type.

7. Indent the first line of each paragraph ¼ inch or less. Big indents disrupt the flow of text. The half-inch indent comes from the tab key on a typewriter. It is never used in professionally set type, where the normal indent is one em (the width of the letter “m”).

8. Cut down on long footnotes and long block quotes. Because block quotes and footnotes count toward the type volume limit, these devices do not affect the length of the allowable presentation.

9. Avoid bold type for briefs and other printing materials. It is hard to read and almost never necessary. Use italics instead. Bold italic type looks like you are screaming at the reader.

10. Avoid setting text in all caps. All-caps text in outlines and section captions also is hard to read, even worse than underlining. Capitals all are rectangular, so the reader can’t use shapes (including ascenders and descenders) as cues. Underlined, allcaps, boldface text is almost illegible.

    One common use of all-caps text in briefs in argument headings. Please be judicious. Headings can span multiple lines, and when they are set in all-caps text are very hard to follow. It is possible to make headings attractive without using capitals.

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