Ci sono voluti tre anni a
Jim Godfrey per realizzare il suo sogno. Un manifesto stampato tipograficamente (stiamo parlando di vera stampa tipografica, non digitale) che spiegasse agli studenti di grafica, ma anche a designer e art director più o meno professionisti, quali sono i peccati di un grafico. Per la precisione i trentaquattro peccati tipografici, non tutti veniali, chi ha un minimo di dimestichezza con l'inglese e la tipografia di divertirà molto a leggerli.
Purtroppo il manifesto originale, ben stampato e realizzato dalla
Rowley Press non è più disponibile, ma è possibile scarica il PDF da
questo link.
Grafici,
Pentitevi!
Typographic Sins
1. Two spaces between sentences.Repent of this sin by using only one space.
2. Prime marks instead of q uotation marks.Evil: "Thou shalt not misuse type" § Good: “Thou shalt not misuse type”
3. Prime mark instead of an apostrophe.Profane: Don't use prime marks § Sacred: Don’t use prime marks
By the way, apostrophes always face this way: Pot o’ gold.
They never face this way: Pot ‘o gold.
4. Failing to tuck punctuation inside quotes.Immoral: “I love type so much”, she confessed.
Chaste: “I love type so much,” she testified.
5. Failing to kern display type.Unseemly gaps can impede readability and be distracting to the reader.
Adjusting the spacing between letters will assuage your guilt.
6. Using a hyphen instead of an en dash.Use an en dash to indicate a duration of time instead of the word “to”: the 8–10 commandments, not 8-10 commandments.
7. Using two hyphens instead of an em dash.An em dash signifies a change in thought—or a parenthetical phrase—within
a sentence.
8. Too many consecutive hyphens.It is sinful to have more than two hyphens on consecutive lines of type, and even that should be avoided.
9. Large amounts of bodytext in uppercase letters.IT BECOMES REALLY DIFFICULT TO READ.
10. Large amounts of reversed typeARE HARDER TO READ. Type on a busy background is also unreadable.
11. Using process colors for body text.It is harder to read, but more importantly, it is hell to register on press.
12. Underlining titles instead of italicizing them.Thou Shalt Not: The Holy Bible Thou Shalt: The Korán
13. Failing to eliminate widows.A widow is a word that sits on a line by itself at the end of a paragraph.
Avoid this or risk being cast into a lake of fire and brimstone.
14. Failing to eliminate orphans.An orphan is the last line of a paragraph that sits alone at the top of a
column or page. Type does not like to be alone
15. Rivers in justified text.Unsightly large spaces between words occur if the line length is too short or the point size of the text too small.
16. Inconsistent leading.Paragraphs should have the same leading for each line.
17. Indenting the first paragraph.The first paragraph is never indented, subsequent paragraphs are.
18. Indenting a paragraph too far.The standard indent for a paragraph is 1 em, not ½ inch. (Identing and adding empty space require penance. Save your soul by using one or the other, not both.)
19. Failing to hang punctuation into the margin.Punctuation has less visual weight than letters or numbers. Compensate for this in display text by hanging the punctuation into the margin.
20. Failing to use or create fractions.Wicked: 1/2 § Righteous: ½
21. Incorrectly abbreviating AM and PM.Unclean: a.m., am, A.M., a.m. § Clean: am (small caps, no periods)
22. Failing to provide margins for type in a box.ugly beautiful
23. Faux italic or oblique type.Impure: Italic § Pure: Italic
24. Faux bold type.Sinful: Bold § Virtuous: Bold
25. Faux small caps.Unkosher: SMALLCAPS § Kosher: smallcaps
26. Horizontally scaled type.Unrepentant: Scaled § Penitent: A condensed typeface
27. Vertically scaled type.Purgatory: Scaled § Heaven: An extended typeface
28. Negative letterspacing.Not very readable.
29. Bad line breaks in headlines and body text.If you don’t break lines for
sense, they can be harder to read.
30. Stacking lowercase letters.Vertical baselines are celestial.
31. Failing to indent bulleted lists.• Bulleted lists look better when the second line aligns flush
with the first letter of the line above it, instead of with the bullet.
32. Failing to use accent marks.Sinner: No esta aqui § Saint: No está aquí.
33. Failing to align baselines of type in adjacent columns of body text.Baselines of all columns of text on a page should align.
This creates a pleasing margin of pure white space.
34. Failing to correct bad rags.For centered or non-justified text, avoid obvious shapes (like pyramids,
steps, angles and overly short or long lines).
35. Failing to use ligatures.unholy: finish § holy: finish
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