Typography(2)

In order to create readable text, not only do you need to choose the right font, but you also need to adjust the way the text is arranged (character set).

If the line spacing is too narrow, the characters will be jammed together, making it difficult to read, and if the line spacing is too wide, the text will lose its connection, making it difficult to read. Therefore, it is essential to write with proper line spacing.

Incidentally, it is said that the appropriate line spacing is 0.7 characters. The reason why I say "approximate" is because, for example, if you are using a gothic font, you need a wider line spacing. When writing, it is necessary to consider the most appropriate line spacing according to the font and purpose of use.

In the body of the text, the text is long and the letters are small, so it does not bother me, but in short sentences such as titles and catch copy, hiragana, katakana However, if you use hiragana, katakana, and kanji together in short sentences such as titles and catchphrases, or if you use symbols, be careful.

As you can see in the figure, hiragana and katakana have a lot of white space, while kanji has less, which creates gaps between characters and makes the text look choppy. This is even more apparent with symbols. So, by adjusting the gaps between characters (character spacing), an action called "kerning" can be performed to improve the balance and give a more sophisticated impression. The result is a more balanced and refined impression.

The direction in which the text is aligned is also designed to make it easier to read. Aligning in the center means that the lines start at different positions, which makes it quite difficult to read. On the other hand, left-aligned text starts exactly at the beginning of each line, making the text easier to recognize and read. For this reason, left justification should be used except in limited cases.

Also, titles tend to be centered, but since the human eye recognizes the left-aligned text first, left-alignment is basically more appropriate.