A little lesson in Typography...

I have a confession to make... I'm a Typoholic. 

In other words... I LOVE TYPOGRAPHY! 

It's historic, complex, detail oriented, and a perfectionist's dream. 

One thing I notice right away is a designer's attention to type. It's not the fonts so much that bother me; it's the careless eye that overlooks some of the most common, easily fixable issues that arise while dealing with type.

A basic understanding of the "No-No's" is all you need to steer clear of committing a Typography fail... so I thought today I would teach a quick lesson on the Character palette in Photoshop, show you some bad examples, and fix them with my favorite character tools :)

Here we go!

You may now be asking, "WHAT THE CRAP DO THESE TERMS MEAN?"

Read on, my fellow typography lovers... read on. 

KEARNING

"the space between each individual letter; typically adjusted in headings"

BEFORE... too much spacing after the capitals and in between words:

AFTER... decreasing the kearning fixes odd spaces and increases the visual flow:

TRACKING

"the spacing between letters in a general section of type; adjusted for readability/spacing issues" 

BEFORE... too close together, hard on the eyes for reading big sections of text:

AFTER... more white space for easy readability:

LEADING

"the vertical space between each line of text; adjusted for readability/spacing issues"

BEFORE... space between lines too close together- hard to read:

AFTER... lines are evenly spaced out- easy to read:

BASELINE SHIFT

"lets you adjust where your letter's baseline will sit; either higher or lower"

BEFORE... capitals' baselines are sitting lower than the rest of the letters:

AFTER... capitals' baselines have been shifted to match the others:

*    *    *    *    *

A couple other rules I like to follow...

1. Never stretch your text vertical or horizontal- yuck! I hate when I see this. It's obvious and totally ruins the typeface. Increase the font size or adjust the tracking to solve spacing issues. If you are warping it too much it's probably time to choose a different font.

2. Stop centering everything! I can sometimes fall into this pattern when I'm writing blog posts and I have to stop myself. Centering seems nice at first- but it ends up making your post look messy with all those hanging sentences lingering into the next line and the jagged edges of the paragraph shape. Left justify- it's better that way.

2. Choose a basic font for your page text. Page text is not the time to play with those fun fonts- leave those for headings. Keep it simple and your readers will thank you! 

Am I missing anything? 

"...Bueller?"