8 Biggest Typesetting Mistakes
8 biggest typesetting mistakes 📖
Courtesy of @tomkoszyk
⠀
After a bunch of font pairing tips, It’s the right time to talk about setting the type 🕰
⠀
Before we move into good practices and detailed guides for setting up type, I wanted to talk about what not to do.
⠀
There’s a lot of things that can break your design when it comes to the type 💫
⠀
Here’s a list of the most common mistakes I noticed recently — basically a list of things you need to keep in mind when designing your type: ⠀
⠀
1️⃣ Line-height/Leading⠀
⠀
2️⃣ Font weights⠀
⠀
3️⃣ Colour⠀
⠀
4️⃣ Contrast⠀
⠀
5️⃣ Paragraph width⠀
⠀
6️⃣ Justification⠀
⠀
7️⃣ Font size⠀
⠀
8️⃣ Text Alignment⠀
Setting too large leading
Enormously large line-heights seems like some kind of trend nowadays. Simply because it looks better visual wise… while hurting readability. Line height shouldn’t be larger than 150% of type size.
Sticking to one font weight
There’s a reason behind fonts having multiple widths, and you should use them in your design. This is a great way of providing more hierarchy and creating distinctive anchor points in your texts.
Using the same color shade for all texts
Using different color shades is another great way of building a hierarchy in texts. Keeping your text/bg contrast higher for titles is a way to go.
Not enough contrast
You can set your type perfectly yet no one will be able to read it if there’s not enough contrast between text and bg. WCAG guidelines are a great reference, but you don’t always need to follow them strictly.
Setting text paragraphs too wide or too narrow
One of the main things you need to consider when setting type is a paragraph length. It’s described by a number of characters in one line and affects text readability greatly. The optimal paragraph width length is considered to be 50–75 characters per line.
Overusing justification
There’s this false assumption that paragraph texts should always be justified. The reality is that flushing left improves readability as it’s easier for an eye to jump between lines.
Using too small font sizes
Choosing the right font size is crucial for ensuring decent readability. Designers tend to use much too small sizes just cause it can look better at a macro scale. 12 pt is an absolute minimum, but 14–16 pt is much better for a paragraph text.
Centering long paragraphs
With center alignment, users work harder to find where each line begins. With a straight left edge, there a consistent place where users can move their eyes to when they complete each line.
Bonus — useful tools for everyday usage:
Integromat — is a powerful automation tool that connects your apps and services to work smarter, not harder.
FlowKit — allows designers to create frighteningly fast user flows within Sketch and Figma.
LetyShops — this service allows you to get a cashback of the amount spent on the purchase — up to 30%!
Leadpages — lets you build beautiful, high-converting websites, unlimited landing pages, pop-up forms you can add to your other websites.
GetResponse — an email marketing platform that enables you to create a valuable marketing list of prospects, partners, and clients, so you can develop relationships with them and build a responsive and profitable customer base.
FlyWheel — is managed WordPress hosting built for designers and creative agencies.
Crello — a free graphic design editor that helps create images for social media, print, and other web-based graphics.
Zadarma — cloud communications platform that offers the best VoIP phone system — IP PBX, virtual numbers in 90 countries.
Be free to send us any feedback by reply or reach us in DM on Instagram
Do you want to receive insights using FB Messenger or Telegram or Email? 👈 Subscribe now.
