Lessons: 12Length: 38 minutes
- Overview
- Transcript
3.3 Common Typesetting Mistakes
We’ll go through a few mistakes to avoid when typesetting text, including rags, rivers, orphans, and widows. Typesetting is a detailed and tedious job, so it’s essential to keep an eye out for a few of these mistakes to create a pleasant reading experience. This is one of the most important aspects of learning typography, and you'll get plenty of useful tips in this video.
1.Introduction
1.1Introduction00:53
1.2A Brief History of Type04:27
1.3Typeface vs. Font01:26
2.Type Classification and Type Families
2.1Type Classification09:44
2.2Type Families02:46
2.3Font File Types02:43
3.Legibility and Readability
3.1Legibility and Type Anatomy02:45
3.2Readability and Typesetting Basics03:33
3.3Common Typesetting Mistakes02:15
4.Choosing Fonts and Font Combinations
4.1Choosing the Right Fonts03:31
4.2Font Combinations02:59
5.Conclusion
5.1Conclusion01:16
3.3 Common Typesetting Mistakes
Hi there and welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Typography. In this lesson we will take a look at common typesetting mistakes and how you can fix them. One of the key differences between a beginner designer and a professional designer is noticeable in the way they set type. Typesetting is a detailed and tedious jobs, so it is essential to keep an eye out for a few of these mistakes to create a pleasant reading experience. Avoiding these mistakes won't only make you a better designer, but also will help your audience read text comfortably. So let's take a look. The first one up is rags. Rags refers to the uneven vertical margin of a block of text. Depending on which side the text is flushed, you will encounter a rag on the opposite side. Pay close attention to the shape of the rag as a whole on the blog of a text. A way to solve this problem is by hyphenating words where necessary or doing a soft return for a new line break. Next we have rivers. These are gaps that appear to run through a block of text. They usually appear in justified text. There are other factors involved as well like the combination of the x-height and the value assigned to the width of each character. A common way to fix the text is by unjustifying the text, or typesetting each line through hyphenation. And last we have orphans and widows. These are common in paragraphs. An orphan is a word or short line at the beginning or end of a column that's separated from the rest of the paragraph. A widow is a short line or single word at the end of a paragraph. These two problems can be solved by adjusting the kerning, tracking or adding manual line breaks like a soft return. In this lesson we'll show you a few of the common typesetting mistakes that can make you a better designer. But more importantly, they can help your audience read text more comfortably, resulting in excellent legibility and readability. In the next lesson, we will show you how to choose the right fonts, since each one has a different use, function, and personality. We'll see you there
