Readability in Type
Good Idea:
Leave plenty of space between your lines of text. The use of appropriate leading allows your readers to easily read through a large body of text.
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Bad Idea:
Don’t leave any space between your lines of text.
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Competent Idea:
Kern your titles to create a balanced look.
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Incompetent Idea:
Do not create your titles with uneven kerning.
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Great Idea: Using large indents at the beginning of paragraphs can create better seperation. This can help your readers see the start of new ideas. It is always a good idea to use the first line indent setting or the tab key to keep your indents even in size.
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Horrid Idea: Do not use the spacebar to create your own indents. Using the spacebar can create uneven indents, and does not seperate your ideas clearly. It can also make it harder on readers if the indents are not the same size. Professionals never use the spacebar to create indents.
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Worthy Idea:
You should use a font that is easy to read to allow for better communication. Readability in Type
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Worthless Idea:
You should not choose a font just because you think it looks cool, many other factors go into choosing an appropriate font. Readability in Type
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Bright Idea:
Reversing a sans serif font out of a dark background can create an appealing design. As you can see on the next page it is very difficult to read a small serif font on a black background, and the serifs are lost in the background.
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Awful Idea:
Reverse a small, serif font out of a dark background.
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Skillful Idea:
When you are dealing with large amounts of text, you should create line lengths that are comfortable to read, and do not require numerous hyphenations.
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Dreadful Idea: You shouldn’t use columns that only allow space for one or two words, and require hyphenation.
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Clever Idea:
You can use different text weights to emphasize the important words in a body of text.
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Useless Idea:
You shouldn’t Use a different weight for every word.
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Swell Idea:
Use right aligned text in small areas, like captions.
Readability in Type
Right aligned text can be used successfully in small areas in a page layout, such as captions or titles. Because of the tediousness of reading right aligned text you should not use it for large amounts of text. To create a comfortable reading experience, you should use left aligned text.
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Lousy Idea:
You should not use right aligned text. Using right aligned text for an entire page of body copy creates an unenjoyable reading experience. Right aligned text is harder to read, and is uncomfortable for your readers who are accustomed to reading left to right, because it makes it harder to find the next line in the paragraph.
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Excellent Idea:
Headings You should use a prominent heading when designing an article, or a website. Using a prominent heading is an excellent way to pull readers into the body copy. You should use a heading that is quick and easy to read to avoid losing the interest of your audience, and so that you can communicate your message efficiently.
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Deplorable Idea: V E R T I C A L H E A D I N G S
Using a vertical heading in your design creates problems for people trying to read your article. The vertical alignment is difficult to read, and creates a messy appearance. Not only is it hard to align, it just does not look appealing to readers, and takes longer to read, which can cause readers to lose interest before they ever get to the content of the article.
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Fantastic Idea:
Continue learning about typography, and soon, you will have no trouble communicating with type.
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Readability in Type
Designer: Melissa Dagley