“Space in typog­ra­phy is like time in music. It is infi­nitely divis­i­ble, but a few pro­por­tional inter­vals can be much more use­ful than a lim­it­less choice of arbi­trary quan­ti­ties.” So says the typog­ra­pher Robert Bringhurst, and just as reg­u­lar use of time pro­vides rhythm in music, so reg­u­lar use of space pro­vides rhythm in typog­ra­phy, and with­out rhythm the lis­tener, or the reader, becomes dis­ori­en­tated and lost.

On the Web, ver­ti­cal rhythm — the spac­ing and arrange­ment of text as the reader descends the page — is con­tributed to by three fac­tors: font size, line height and mar­gin or padding. All of these fac­tors must cal­cu­lated with care in order that the rhythm is main­tained. The basic unit of ver­ti­cal space is line height. Estab­lish­ing a suit­able line height that can be applied to all text on the page is the key to a solid depend­able ver­ti­cal rhythm. It will engage and guide the reader down the page.

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29th May, 2008 Comments Off

Idea of a new typog­ra­phy term – kem­ing. noun. The result of improper kerning :-)

22nd February, 2008 Comments Off

Web typog­ra­phy is very impor­tant and often reflects your site’s tone and affect its visual impact. Unfor­tu­nately, ihe world of print design still hasn’t made a sub­stan­tial impres­sion on the web. Sure, a few things are nicked now and again, but most web design­ers remain bliss­fully unaware of what their QuarkX­Press– or InDesign-loving pals are up to. Just recently .net mag­a­zine pub­lished won­der­ful arti­cle on Bet­ter Web Typog­ra­phy. The arti­cle demon­strates some aspects of of ver­ti­cal rhythm and base­line grid. It comes with small tuto­r­ial and can be printed in PDF.

28th January, 2008 Comments Off