The 33 Laws of Typography

Course details

Typography, done right, can enrich any message, making it beautiful and easy to understand. In this course, Jill Butler distills her many years of teaching and design consulting into 33 laws of typography. These laws are the details that designers can overlook or, in some cases, never learned, but that make for stronger compositions. Here these rules are broken down into five categories: documents, large bodies of text, small blocks of text, punctuation, and typefaces. Dive into any section to start learning how to put these principles into action in your own designs.

Learning objectives
Maintaining a visual hierarchy
Avoiding bad paragraph breaks and line-breaking hyphens
Staying away from all caps and underlined text
Using proper punctuation
Choosing the right typeface

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Introduction

1. How to Format a Document

02 - 01 Distrust default software settings
03 - 02 Ensure good contrast between text and background
04 - 03 Avoid chart junk and page junk
05 - 04 Enforce a consistent style within a document
06 - 05 Maintain a visual hierarchy
07 - 06 Group related page elements

2. How to Format Large Bodies of Text

08 - 07 Set printed body text from 9 to 11 points
09 - 08 Set body text two to three alphabets wide
10 - 09 Favor flush-left, ragged-right body text
11 - 10 Separate sentences with one space, not two
12 - 11 Don't allow less than seven characters on a line
13 - 12 Avoid bad paragraph breaks
14 - 13 Avoid line-breaking hyphens
15 - 14 Signal new paragraphs once, not twice
16 - 15 Break up large blocks of text

3. How to Format Smaller Blocks of Text

17 - 16 Emphasize ten percent or less of text
18 - 17 Avoid all caps and underlined text
19 - 18 Set acronyms and initialisms in small caps
20 - 19 Hang punctuation in small chunks of text
21 - 20 Hang bullets and numbers in lists
22 - 21 Avoid bad line breaks
23 - 22 Use symbols and special characters as needed
24 - 23 Use proportional old-style figures in body text
25 - 24 Adjust leading and kerning for large text
26 - 25 Verify software alignments optically

4. How to Use Punctuation Properly

27 - 26 Connect thoughts, using em dashes
28 - 27 Show ranges, using en dashes
29 - 28 Clarify, and improve readability, using hyphens
30 - 29 Designate feet and inches, with prime symbols
31 - 30 Replace missing characters with apostrophes

5. How to Choose Typefaces

32 - 31 Limit typefaces to two per document
33 - 32 Use typefaces that reinforce a document's mood
34 - 33 Choose serif or sans serif, based on aesthetics

Conclusion

35 - Goodbye