10 Common Typography Mistakes

kerning mistakes

In 10 Common Typography Mistakes Brian Hoff lists 10 common mistakes used in type design/layout that can make a large impact in the effectiveness and appearance of your designs, in addition to saving you time and money when dealing with printers.

12 Comments leave a comment below

  1. It’s about time. It’s so basic, like “duh?”

    In my day characters in headlines were all kiss-fit, created on Typositors by slaves whose knowledge of English was linited at best.

    Congrats to Brian Hoff and to you for posting this.

  2. “..was linited at best.”

    –Inappropriate snort–

    Bugs me that Adobe software is set to metrics by default, when Optical is a great basic auto setting. Would solve half the kerning/tracking issues in the world right there.

  3. now if you would just “shout” that people need to stop using the foot mark as apostrophes, then i would die a happy person.

  4. Nothing new here. Same old story as far as I’m concerned. I’ve known this for years. Typography 101.

  5. Apparently Bernie is the only person in the world.

    Can never know too much, so thanks for posting this. Also showed up in The Week in Type.

  6. Yep, Typography 101.

  7. Well, as a non-professional with an interest in typography, I found it interesting.

  8. Funny you guys are talking about tiny details while 99% of the people out there don’t even see the difference between Arial and Helvetica… or even Helvetica and Verdana :-)

  9. you have to keep in mind, people only notice design generally when it’s bad (i.e. they can’t use it, can’t read it, etc.). the everyday person may not appreciate the finer details of typography but that’s what we’re striving for, being “invisible” in a sense. we need some rules you know. we’re not animals!! :P

  10. it`s very funny thnak for this information:-)
    i just can say it`s 101…

  11. go back to letter-spacing school. The suggested spacing between the
    “l” and the “v” is off!!

  12. Yawn. He made the kerning worse. It’s not about unity, it’s about opening your eyeballs and making it looking good.