From the course: Graphic Design Foundations: Typography

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Hyphenation and justification

Hyphenation and justification

From the course: Graphic Design Foundations: Typography

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Hyphenation and justification

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- In the last two videos, we talked about different forms of typographic alignment. In this video, we are looking at the best ways to set body copy for longer reading, whether in print-based media or screen-based media. What are we looking for? Above all, body copy should be inviting and easy to read. For ease of reading, most body copy is set as justified text or flush left text, because your eye can easily find the next line at the left side of the text block. Good word spacing is like good letter spacing. It should be invisible. That means if you notice it, there's a problem. Since we read groups of words at a time, we need just enough space to separate words. Too much word spacing breaks a line of type into separate words. Too little, and the words run together. The computer justifies body copy by making small adjustments to the word spacing in each line, and by selectively hyphenating or breaking words. Look at the…

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