Typographic Rules and Terms

-- what are the following:
Margin - defines the active area of a page and directs the viewer toward the visual elements
Column - vertical divider of space used to align visual elements
Alley - space between characters
Module - spatial areas that support the textual and visual contents of a design
Gutter - inactive, negative spaes that separate one column from the next to prevent textual and visual elements from colliding into each other
Folio - page number

-- What are the advantages of a multiple column grid.?
They contain several spatial intervals which allow for multiple compositional options as well as being flexible and accommodating for a range of visual elements. They also provide opportunities to create rhythm, drama, movement, and tension through the interaction of visual elements.
They are used for complex projects such as books and magazines.

-- Why is there only one space after a period?
characters are proportional; they each take up a proportional amount of space

-- What is a character (in typography)?
an individual element of type such as a letter or punctuation mark

-- How many characters is optimal for a line length? words per line?
around 40 characters per line (70 is too many and 24 is the shortest) or 6 words of 6 characters

-- Why is the baseline grid used in design?
to maintain continuity across the pages of a design

-- What is a typographic river?
Visible Holes
a series of inconsistent word spaces that create distracting open lines running vertically through the justified paragraph

-- What does clotheslining or flow line or hangline mean?
flow lines support vertical columns by dividing a page into horizontal intervals to provide additional alignment points in a grid

-- How can you incorporate white space into your designs?
To create movement within the page and create interesting negative space

-- What is type color/texture mean?
type color - refers to the density of typographic elements and their perceived gray value -- the overall feeling of lightness and darkness on the page.

-- What is x-height, how does it effect type color?
the height of the lowercase letters without ascenders and descenders. Type color is affected by the thickness of the lines or leading

-- Define Tracking:
the typographic technique used to adjust the overall spacing of words, lines, and paragraphs to improve the readable appearance of text.

-- Define Kerning. Why doe characters need to be kerned? What are the most common characters that need to be kerned (kerning pairs)?
used to adjust the slight distances between letters to avoid character collisions, as well as irregular and unwanted spaces.
Ty, Va, 11, and 19

-- In justification or H&J terms what do the numbers: minimum, optimum, maximum mean?
minimum - the minimum number of words that come before or after a hyphen
optimum - allows you to alter word or character spacing within any non-justified paragraphs.
maximum - allows you to adjust the tightness in character spacing. To loosen the spacing enter higher numbers.

-- What is the optimum space between words?
En space

-- What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph. Are there any rules?
Indents (the first paragraph of any text does not require an indent because nothing comes before it)
An extra line length
Typographic Devices (bullets, ornaments, symbols)
Hanging indents


-- What are the rules associated with hyphenation?
only used for hyphenated words
no more than 3 times in a row, or six of the eight lines in a paragraph
never hyphenate a word in a headline

-- What is a ligurature?
a specially designed character produced by combining two or three letters into one unified form

-- What does CMYK and RGB mean?
CMYK - used when preparing for print (cyan, magenta, yellow and black)
RGB - used when preparing for on-screen use (red, green, blue)

-- What does hanging punctuation mean?
it is a slight indent that is visually distracting. It applies to asterisks, apostrophes, commas, en dashes, hyphens, periods, and quotation marks.

-- What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe? What is the difference between
an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)?
apostrophes and quote marks are angled or curved and opened or closed, whereas inch and foot marks are straight up and down.

-- What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used.
hyphen - used to link words and breaks syllables of words in text blocks. It is one third of an em rule.
en dash - a punctuation mark used in compound words and to separate items (dates, locations, phone numbers). Also used to separate thoughts when thinking (when used in this way spaces are added before and after the dash).
em dash - a punctuation mark used to separate thoughts within a text. There are no spaces needed before and after, but kerning may be required.

-- What is a widow and an orphan?
widow - one or two words that are left over at the end of the paragraph and should be avoided
orphan - one or two words from the previous spread that start on a new page, which should be corrected to avoid drawing attention to the isolated elements