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Line Break Rhetoric
Posted by microspective in
26 Jan 2009 — 8:24pm
26 Jan 2009 — 8:24pm
If a line break creates a hiccup in readability, does it make for bad typography?
On a client's business card:
special gifts
adorned with
puppy and teddy
bear illustrations
The measure is short to showcase a portion of the client's illustration.
In visual context, the line breaks are exactly where they need to be, but the interruption of "teddy bear" is unnerving to me.
Only, not as unnerving as the alternative...
special gifts
adorned with
puppy and teddy bear
illustrations
Thoughts?
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26 Jan 2009 — 10:24pm
Can you go to 5 lines?
BTW, try an ampersand.
hhp
26 Jan 2009 — 11:31pm
Are they as good as chimp pix?
special gifts
adorned with
illustrations of
puppies and
teddy bears
or Hrant's:
special gifts
adorned with
puppy and
teddy bear
illustrations
27 Jan 2009 — 7:53am
Excellent! Thanks, gentlemen.
Hrant, I've got the curse of the Grammar Nazi, and I can't conscionably use an ampersand if it's not in a title or the like.
These are fantastic solutions to the specific problem I used as an example. But what about the theory behind it? What if I did have to keep it to four lines? When it comes to design, is it better to break the line for readability and have an inappropriately ragged edge, or is it best to keep them looking balanced and break up words that should probably be kept together?
27 Jan 2009 — 8:24am
> is it better to break the line for readability
The idea of readability tends to apply to long, immersive text only. For such short text looks surely trumps readability every time. Frankly any problem people will have reading that smoothly will be momentary and immediately forgotten.
BTW, if you center the text you can (and in fact often should) have great variance in line length.
hhp
27 Jan 2009 — 9:14am
> ...text looks surely trumps readability every time.
I think you're right.
> ...center the text...
Agreed! Unfortunately, it does not apply in this particular case, as it is only on a business card, left edge, to make room for the illustrator's graphic on the the right.
27 Jan 2009 — 9:28am
Do you need a hyphen with that compound modifier?