068: Thou shall not use justified text over a short measure

Commentary If a designer can spend several years obsessively refining the word spacing and kerning of a justified paragraph, then justifying a short line length is okay. For those with less than a decade, this is a bad idea. Justified type requires a minimum number of characters to be acceptable. This is about mathematics. Too few characters, and the word spacing will become enormous to create a justified axis. Large word spacing will create “rivers” of negative space within a paragraph and thus make reading more difficult. Good typography should be invisible.

It facilitates reading and enhances understanding. Creating a justified line length that feels effortless is the correct solution. Typography stops being invisible when we are faced with a discrepancy, such as large word spaces. When justifying text, a good rule of thumb with line length measures is to use no more than 80 characters (approximately three alphabets), and no fewer than 26 characters (one alphabet). But the best approach is to set the text with a line measure that has an optically consistent amount of word and letter space. SA