How to Properly Adjust Font Settings in Sketch
When I first started working in Sketch, there were times when I caught myself at not fully understanding all the tiny details of the text layer settings. It took me some time to figure it out and I would like to share with you what I learned. If you work in design and feel like typography is the only thing that keeps you from being the best designer in the world, this article might just be for you. Just as the human body is 80% water, the modern designer is 80% typography:)
First of all, let’s figure out the terms. In my experience, I’ve noticed that many typography fails are based on the terminology misunderstanding.
Typesettings
Font Size
The questions I first had were ‘What determines the size of the font? Why isn’t the size determined by the pixels of which the letters consist?’.
The logical assumption would be that the size of the letters would be the size of the font. However, let’s not forget, that not all the letters in the font are of the same size. Yes, they share a visual weight, but at least there are capitals and lowercase letters, not to mention other differences.
You have probably noticed the borders around the text layers, a so-called gray frame around the text in the working area in Sketch.
It is there to help you adjust the font layer size. It is different for each kind of typeface. Every font has its built-in metrics. In order to determine the frame size around the font, Sketch uses the following metrics:
- ascender — on lowercase letters the vertical stroke that extends above the x-height, e.g. lower case letters b, k, l;
- cap height — the height of a capital letter measured from the baseline;
- x-height — the height of the lowercase ‘x’ which is used as a guideline for the height of unextended lowercase letters. The line resting on the body of the lowercase letters called the midline;
- baseline — invisible line on which the letters in a font rest;
- descender — parts of lowercase letters that extend below the baseline, e.g. lower case letters p, j, y, q.
Now that we know what is what, it’s easy to understand that Sketch determines the text layer height based on these metrics.
Font size is often measured in pt (points), not pixels (!). These points define the height of the lettering.
Letterspacing
If you are willing to master typography, it’s important to distinguish between these two:
Letterspacing (a.k.a. character spacing or tracking) — is the horizontal whitespace between every two letters in the font. It is determined by the font maker and changing it will affect the spacing between each character.
Kerning — unlike letterspacing, it affects only each letter pair separately, to improve the visual balance of a written word. And, it simplifies the reading, as humans tend to read not letter by letter separately but word by word.
Creation of a good font can take up to 2–3 years. The font designer sets these values very carefully, to ensure the harmony of the text.
If a typeface is harmonious, lowercase letters don’t need any additional letterspacing. But in reality, it depends on the typeface. In design practice, it’s not recommended to letterspace small sizes from 10 to 16 pt. In general, the rule of thumb is that the smaller the font size, the greater the letterspacing, and vice versa － the larger the font size, the smaller the letter spacing. Unless you’re a typography guru with tons of experience I would advise you against using lowercase letterspacing.
The uppercase letters are different. The uppercase appears at the beginning of a word or sentence, so they are designed to fit correctly with lowercase letters. When the whole word is written in caps, the letters appear to be too close to each other. This is why the uppercase needs to be letterspaced. It’s recommended to add 5–12% extra letterspacing to text in all caps letters.
By setting letterspacing (Character in Sketch) to 0, we destroy the work of the font designer they performed in order to keep the font in harmony. But no worries, setting the Character metric back to ‘auto’ we reward all the blood and sweat they put into the creation of this font.
Letterspacing in Sketch is measured in px (pixels).
One more important thing — when the letterspacing is too big, it breaks the ligatures.
Ligature
Ligature is a unity of two letters into one symbol in order to enhance the harmony of the font.
The most popular ligatures in the Latin alphabet are fi and fl. By the way, ampersand (&) is also a ligature.
Ligature is an artistic method, often used in logo design.
In order to switch off the ligatures in Sketch, go to View → Show Fonts → Typography → Ligatures.
Leading / Line-Spacing (Line-height)
Line-height (fr. interligne — ‘between the lines’) is the space between the baselines. The line-height consists of the font size and the space between the lines.
In a freshly created text layer, the line-height is set to default (as in the font’s file). If you set the line-height, the baseline remains the same.
In Sketch, you can use the default line-height of a font or set your own number in pixels.
For most texts, the optimal line-height is between 120–145% of the point size.
Paragraph
Paragraph — is a text component that consists of one or more sentences, united by one idea.
In print and writing, the paragraph normally begins with a new line and ends with an incomplete line. Often, the first line begins with a paragraph indentation. Calling it a ‘paragraph’ instead is a common mistake in typography and polygraphy.
When setting the paragraph distance make sure space is large enough to be easily spotted, but not so large that the paragraphs do not seem to be connected. It’s recommended to use 50–100% of the body text size. The larger the point size, the greater the distance between paragraphs so that the difference is noticeable.
In Sketch, there are two ways of manual line transition: paragraph and line. To create a new paragraph, press Return (Enter). To create simply a new line, press Shift+Return (Enter).
The value for space between paragraphs is set in pixels and it appears automatically, whenever you create a new paragraph. It is easy to use if you need to break your text into paragraphs or create a list, where every item starts with a new line.
Alignment
In Sketch, you can also align text layers horizontally, vertically and with a fixed width. More details here.
Conclusion
As you can see now, digital typography is a complex topic. But if we follow its basic rules, our products will always look clean and professional. And more importantly, our text will always have high readability. I hope this article was helpful for you and if you have any questions about typography in Sketch feel free to ask it in comments.
