Alignment

Ligature

“Ligatures combine two or three letters into a single character.They are available on in expert fonts,and are crucial for the refined setting of serf type.The ligatures fi an fl are,because of their frequency,the most important. Letterspaced text precludes the use of ligatures.”

Willi Kunz

ff fi fl ffi ffl

ff fi fl ffi ffl

Use the ligatures required by the font,and the characters required by the language,in which you are setting type. In most roman faces the letter f reaches into the space beyond it. In most Italics,the f reaches into the space on both sides. Typographers call these overlaps kerns.Only a few kerns,like those in the arm of the f and the tail of the j,are implicit in a normal typefont.

Robert Bringhurst

“If you wish to avoid ligatures altogether,restrict yourself to faces that don’t require them.

Willi Kunz

Bembo,set without ligatures (above) and with ligature (below)

AE ae Æ æ

Hanging Punctuation Attention to typographic detail is “ one aspect of design that separates the amateurs from the pros.Today's software Examples of Hanging Punctuation makes some of these details of typogCompare these two examples raphy easier than ever to accomplish. of a pull-quote without and with Hanging punctuation,commonly used hanging punctuation: for pull-quotes,creates the illusion of a uniform edge for the text,with “Attention to typo- the punctuation outside the margins. graphic detail is one It's also called optical alignment. aspect of design that Beyond punctuation,optical margin separates the amate- adjustments may be used to make subtle shifts to allow for the shapes of “ Attention to typo- letters and serifs,such as extengraphic detail is one ding the edge of initial caps outside the aspect of design that outer margin. separates the amate-

The eye craves order and alignment.However,technically aligned text doesn't always look as if it is perfectly aligned because of the shape and size of characters in text, especially punctuation.Optical alignment makes text edges look more orderly and balanced.At typical body copy sizes,optical misalignment is rarely noticeable.However, at the larger text sizes used for pull-quotes and headlines the use of hanging punctuation adds a touch of refinement to the layout.It may take extra time to hang your punctuation,especially if your software has no automatic alignment options,but the results are noticeable.

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Designing with Hanging Punctuation

In some programs,such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign,hanging punctuation is an automated function.For other programs it requires some manual manipulation of the text.For programs that don't have automatic options to hang punctuation you can use kerning or invisible characters to create the hanging punctuation effect.To manually hang the initial (left) quotation mark in a pull-quote:

1. 2.

Method 1

Add a space in front of the left quotation mark Kern the space to the left (negative kern value) until it moves outside the margin Note:The quotation mark may not show up on screen once kerned but it will print.

Method 2

Apply a hanging indent to the paragraph so that the quotation mark extends to the left of the optical margin for the remainder of the text. Or,create a paragraph style or style sheet with a hanging indent.