MARKS AND MEASURES · VOLUME 1 OF 2 · 210 TERMS

Glyphs and grids

Words for judging a page, and for its letters, lines, layout, images and colour.

You can’t fix what you can’t name. Twenty-one words for judging a page and 519 words for the things on it, for people who make documents and decks every week but were never taught design.

Instruments and Moves names what happens in the words. This companion names what happens around them: the letters, the space, the page, the slide and the file. It is a glossary of words you’ll hear or need, not a style guide, so practices such as “one idea per slide” are left out.

MARKS AND MEASURES IN TWO VOLUMES

Read in order, or open the volume you need

• VOL 1 Glyphs and Grids · A1–A5 · B1–B6 · this volume Words for judging a page, and for its letters, lines, layout, images and colour
• VOL 2 Proofs and Pixels · B7–B14 Decks, charts, design process, print production, sign-off, editorial marks, publishing and interface components
• INDEX The phrasebooks glossary · every term in the four toolkits, A to Z, with the volume that holds it

Marks and Measures runs to two volumes so that each stays short enough to read in one sitting. Every volume holds whole sections in the toolkit’s own order, with the appendices for its own entries. The toolkit closes with the defects checklist and the last pass, at the end of volume two.

The phrasebooks glossary lists every term in all four toolkits and opens it in the volume that holds it.

WHY A GLOSSARY

You can’t fix what you can’t name.

A reader who sees a river or a runt won’t know its name, but they’ll trust the document a little less. The words in this companion turn “it looks off” into something a colleague can find and fix.

Most feedback on a page or a deck arrives as a feeling: busy, cramped, flat, off. The feeling is usually right and the note is usually useless, because it does not say where to look. A named fault can be found, argued about and fixed in minutes.

The words are drawn from typography, newsrooms, print production, presentation software and data visualisation, the trades that had to name these things because their work depended on it. They are written here for people who make documents and decks every week but were never taught design.

HOW IT MIRRORS THE FIRST GLOSSARY

The same structure, around the words instead of in them

Instruments and Moves names what happens in the words. This companion names what happens around them. Words for judging play the part of the instruments, words for things the part of the moves, and defects the part of the vices.

FIG 01 — TWO GLOSSARIES, ONE DESK

The instruments in the first glossary say why a move helps or hurts. The words for judging here do the same job for a page: hierarchy, contrast and proximity explain why a layout works before anyone names its parts.

The parallel is not exact. The moves carried two verdicts each, on the page and aloud. The things here carry a kind instead, because a gutter is neither good nor bad. Only the defects carry a judgement, and every one of them is a fault.

EIGHT KINDS OF WORD

Every term is one of eight kinds.

Most are parts: things you can point at. Forty-six are defects, named faults that play the part of the vices in Instruments and Moves.

FIG 02 — THE TERMS IN PART TWO, BY KIND

Part: something you can point at. Measure: a size, unit or setting. Format: a file type, paper size or production method. Stage: a step or artefact in the design process. Status: the state a piece of work is in. Mark: a symbol or abbreviation placed in the text itself. Role: a job in making a document or book. Defect: a named fault.

The kind is printed beside every term, in the same colour everywhere, so a reader scanning a plate can find the defects at a glance. The counts are generated from the entries, not typed.

Where the field guides explain why a family’s terms work, its introduction ends with In the field guides, naming the entries to read. Terms already defined in another toolkit aren’t repeated: where an entry needs one, it points to the toolkit and family that hold it.

THE SHAPE OF THE COLLECTION

Where the words cluster

Authoring and publishing, setting text and interface components hold the most terms. The defects gather where habit does the work unnoticed: in setting, in images, in charts and in the manuscript.

FIG 03 — TERMS PER FAMILY, BY KIND

The families run from the smallest unit on the page to the last handover. Letters, setting and furniture are about type. Page, images and colour are about layout. Slides and charts are the two forms most work communication now takes. Process, files and sign-off are about working with other people, editorial marks are about the text itself, authoring and publishing follow the text out into a book or a journal, and interface components name the parts of the screens most work now runs through.

sign-off and editorial marks hold no defects at all. Their words name stages and states, which matter because most work fails at handovers rather than in the making.

NINE WORDS, TWO MEANINGS

Nine terms mean different things to different people

• B1 Font. One style or file of a typeface, such as Helvetica Bold. Two meanings: in everyday use, a synonym for typeface.
• B2 Widow. The last line of a paragraph stranded at the top of a page or column (Bringhurst, 2004). Two meanings: some people use it for a runt.
• B3 Kicker. Two meanings: a label above the headline, or the closing line of a story.
• B3 Deck, dek. One or two summary lines under the headline. Two meanings: “deck” also means a set of slides.
• B3 Masthead. Two meanings: the title block at the top of a publication, or its list of staff.
• B4 Gutter. Two meanings: the space between columns, or the inner margin where pages meet at the spine.
• B8 Zero baseline. The line where the value axis starts at zero. Two meanings: not the type baseline in B1.
• B11 Redline, blackline. Two meanings: a document comparison showing changes (legal and policy), or a design annotated with specs (B9)
• B12 Slug. Two meanings: a short label for a story in the newsroom, or the job-notes area beyond the bleed in print (B10)

Several terms carry two meanings depending on who is speaking: a designer, an editor, a printer or a developer. Their definitions say so. When one of these words comes up in a review, ask which meaning is in play before arguing about the answer.

HOW TO READ A PLATE

Terms, a drawing and where you’ll meet them

• 01 The heading says what the terms on the plate have in common, or how to tell them apart
• 02 Each term carries its definition and its kind, in the same colour everywhere
• 03 The drawing shows the terms on a page, a slide, a chart or a letter
• 04 The panel says where you’ll meet each term, and how to keep them apart
• 05 The longform adds the full row from the glossary for every term

Part one works differently. Each judging word has its own slide: the definition, the line it usually arrives as in a review, and a drawing of the page as found and as mended. The panel says how to see the quality and how to fix it.

WHAT THIS COMPANION IS NOT

Three misreadings, refused in advance

• 01 Not a style guide. Practices such as “one idea per slide” are left out. They belong in a house style, which this vocabulary helps you write.
• 02 Not a software manual. The terms name what you see, whichever tool made it. Where a tool has its own name for something, the definition says so.
• 03 Not a licence to redesign. Knowing the word for a fault is a reason to fix that fault, not to start again.

The third misreading is the costly one. A reviewer who has just learnt the word “hierarchy” tends to find it missing everywhere. The words here are for precise notes: name the fault, point at it, and leave the rest of the page alone.

Part one of two

Words for judging

Twenty-one words designers use in critique, in five groups. They name qualities rather than objects. Like the instruments, they tell you what to look for.

• ONE Words for judging
• TWO Words for things

These are the words you’ll hear in a design review. They name qualities rather than objects. Most feedback on a page or deck is one of these words, said with a frown.

Each entry gives the definition and the line it usually arrives as in a review, then how to see the quality for yourself, how it goes wrong and how to fix it. Where a fault has a name of its own in Part two, the entry gives it.

In the field guides.

A1

IMPORTANCE

Part one of two

A1

What the eye sees first

Five words for the order in which a page is taken in: which element leads, by how much, and why.

Hierarchy is the result. Contrast, scale and visual weight are the means, and the focal point is where they land. Most reviews that say a slide is “busy” or “flat” are reaching for one of these five words.

They are easy to confuse because they move together. A useful order of questions: is there a focal point, is the hierarchy clear after it, and if not, is the problem contrast (differences too small), scale (sizes too close) or weight (the wrong thing heavy)?

A1 · IMPORTANCE JUDGING

Hierarchy

In a review

FIG 04 — THREE PLACES TO START, THEN ONE

How to see it. Squint at the page until the words blur. The shapes that survive are the hierarchy. If three things survive at the same size, the reader has three places to start and no reason to choose one. A clear hierarchy has one first, a few seconds and everything else.

How it goes wrong. Every heading promoted to the same size, a bold on every other line, or a logo and a headline fighting for the top. It is the most common fault in work documents, because each author promotes their own section.

How to fix it. Decide the one thing a reader must see first, then make everything else smaller, lighter or later. Three levels are enough for most pages: the headline, the subheads and the body.

Related · Contrast · Scale · Visual weight · Focal point, entry point

A1 · IMPORTANCE JUDGING

Contrast

In a review

FIG 05 — A DIFFERENCE TOO SMALL TO NOTICE

How to see it. Convert the page to greyscale and look again. Contrast that only lives in hue disappears. Then compare each heading with the text under it: if the difference is a single step of size or a slightly darker grey, a reader will not register it at a glance.

How it goes wrong. Timid differences: 12 pt headings over 11 pt body, two greys a shade apart, a bold that is only semi-bold. It also fails the other way, as vibration (B6) when strong colours of equal lightness collide.

How to fix it. Make differences decisive or remove them. Change two properties at once, such as size and weight, and keep the ratio large enough to see from across a table.

Related · Hierarchy · Value, lightness · Weight · Contrast ratio

A1 · IMPORTANCE JUDGING

Scale

In a review

FIG 06 — THE NUMBER, PUSHED

How to see it. Find the most important element and measure it against its neighbours. If the key number is set at body size beside a decorative photo twice its area, the scale is arguing against the content.

How it goes wrong. The number that carries the slide set in the same size as its label, or a stock image given more area than the finding it decorates. Scale is also lost when everything is enlarged at once, which leaves the ratios unchanged.

How to fix it. Push the ratio. A key figure can be four or five times the size of the text around it. Shrink the supporting material rather than enlarging everything.

Related · Hierarchy · Visual weight · Point (pt)

A1 · IMPORTANCE JUDGING

Visual weight

In a review

FIG 07 — THE LOGO OUTWEIGHS THE POINT

How to see it. Weight comes from size, darkness, saturation, density and isolation together. Ask which element you would notice first if the slide flashed on screen for one second. If it is not the most important one, something else is too heavy.

How it goes wrong. A logo, a dark photo or a saturated block of colour that outweighs the headline. Heavy furniture at the edges (thick rules, filled banners) pulls the eye away from the content in the middle.

How to fix it. Lighten what is heavy and unimportant before adding weight to what matters. Shrink the logo, lift the banner to a tint, or move the dark image away from the headline.

Related · Hierarchy · Balance · Scale · Noise, clutter

A1 · IMPORTANCE JUDGING

Focal point, entry point

In a review

FIG 08 — SIX EQUAL BOXES, THEN ONE WAY IN

How to see it. Watch where your own eye lands when the page appears, before you start reading. Then ask a colleague where they looked first. If the answers differ, or nobody can say, the page has no entry point.

How it goes wrong. A grid of equal boxes, each with an icon and three lines, and nothing to begin with. Dashboards and summary slides suffer most, because every item was added by someone who thought it mattered.

How to fix it. Give one element a clear advantage in size, colour or isolation. Put it where reading starts, usually top left in left-to-right languages, and let everything else follow from it.

Related · Hierarchy · Reading path, flow · Visual weight

A2

RELATION

Part one of two

A2

What belongs with what

Four words for how a reader works out which parts of a page go together, before reading a word of them.

Alignment, proximity and grouping are the signals a reader uses to sort a page into sets. Consistency is what makes the sorting reliable: like things treated alike, so that a difference always means something.

Most of these faults are invisible to the author, who already knows what goes with what. A reader does not, and takes the layout at its word.

A2 · RELATION JUDGING

Alignment

In a review

FIG 09 — FOUR EDGES, THEN TWO

How to see it. Lay a ruler, or a guide in the software, along the left edge of the text and see what touches it. Turn on the software’s smart guides and drag each element: if it snaps somewhere new, it was off.

How it goes wrong. Edges a few pixels apart, text boxes nudged by eye, or a centred title over a flush-left body. Small misalignments look like mistakes rather than choices, and readers notice them without knowing what they noticed.

How to fix it. Pick a small number of shared edges and put everything on them. Use the align and distribute commands rather than dragging, and set guides from a grid (B4).

Related · Grid · Guides, rulers · Consistency · Tangent

A2 · RELATION JUDGING

Proximity

In a review

FIG 10 — WHICH CHART IS THE CAPTION FOR?

How to see it. Cover the labels and ask which items look like they belong together. Readers group by distance before they read a word, so whatever sits closest is assumed to be related.

How it goes wrong. A caption equidistant between two charts, a heading closer to the paragraph above it than the one it introduces, or labels floating away from the bars they name. Paragraph spacing set with double returns makes all gaps equal and destroys the signal.

How to fix it. Make the space inside a group clearly smaller than the space between groups. Tuck captions under their figures and give headings more space above than below.

Related · Grouping · Space before, space after · Caption, cutline

A2 · RELATION JUDGING

Consistency

In a review

FIG 11 — ONE KIND OF THING, ONE TREATMENT

How to see it. Line up every instance of one kind of thing and compare them side by side: every heading, every chart title, every callout box. In a deck, use the slide sorter (B7) and look across the thumbnails.

How it goes wrong. Headings typed by hand rather than styled, charts pasted from three different tools, blue that changes shade from slide to slide. Each difference makes a reader wonder whether it means something.

How to fix it. Apply styles rather than formatting by hand, and fix the style once. In decks, rebuild stray slides on the slide master. Keep a short list of allowed sizes and colours.

Related · Paragraph style, character style · Slide master · Template · Jumping

A2 · RELATION JUDGING

Grouping

In a review

FIG 12 — TWO PAIRS THAT READ AS FOUR OF A KIND

How to see it. Name the groups you intended, then look at the page and name the groups you can see. Closeness, likeness, a shared colour and a shared box all make a group, and the strongest signal wins.

How it goes wrong. Unrelated cards placed in one evenly spaced row, so they read as a set. Or the opposite: related items given different colours or shapes, so they read as strangers.

How to fix it. Use one signal per grouping and make it strong: wider gaps between groups, a shared tint, or a container. Avoid stacking all three on every group, which adds noise without adding meaning.

Related · Proximity · Container, card · Consistency

A3

MOVEMENT

Part one of two

A3

Where the eye goes next

Four words for the route through a page: the path it lays down, the patterns readers fall into, the balance that keeps it steady and the rhythm that keeps it moving.

A page is read in time, one element after another. Reading path names the intended route and the F and Z patterns name the ones readers default to. Balance and rhythm describe whether the route feels settled or lurches.

The F-pattern is the one word in this part with an empirical finding behind it. The others are craft vocabulary: agreed names for what practitioners see, not laws.

A3 · MOVEMENT JUDGING

Reading path, flow

In a review

FIG 13 — A ROUTE THAT DOUBLES BACK

How to see it. Trace with a finger the route you expect a reader to take, then trace the route the layout actually suggests. Crossings, backtracks and long jumps between columns are where readers get lost.

How it goes wrong. Numbered steps arranged in a snake, a figure placed above the text that introduces it, or a two-column page where the eye has to jump back up to the top of the next column halfway through a thought.

How to fix it. Order the content the way it will be read and let the layout follow: top to bottom, left to right. Where a reader must jump, give them a signpost such as a number or an arrow.

Related · F-pattern, Z-pattern · Focal point, entry point · Hierarchy

A3 · MOVEMENT JUDGING

F-pattern, Z-pattern

In a review

FIG 14 — TWO ROUTES THE EYE TAKES

How to see it. On a text-heavy page, check what a reader gets from the left edge and the first lines alone: headings, the first words of paragraphs, the first bullet. On a sparse slide or poster, check the four corners of the Z: top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right.

How it goes wrong. Key words buried at the ends of lines on a dense page, where an F-scanning reader never reaches. On a sparse page, the call to action placed somewhere off the Z, such as the middle left.

How to fix it. On dense pages, front-load headings and paragraphs so the left edge carries the message. On sparse pages, put the start at top left and the action at bottom right.

Related · Reading path, flow · Above the fold · Lede

A3 · MOVEMENT JUDGING

Balance

In a review

FIG 15 — A PAGE THAT TIPS TO ONE SIDE

How to see it. Imagine the page on a pivot at its centre. Heavy elements far from the centre tip it. Symmetry is one way to balance, and an asymmetric layout is balanced when a large light area offsets a small heavy one.

How it goes wrong. All the content crowded to one side with the other empty for no reason, or a dark image in one corner and nothing to answer it. A page can also be too balanced: perfect symmetry on every slide reads as static.

How to fix it. Answer weight with weight, or with space used on purpose. Move an image across, enlarge a light element, or let one generous empty area become part of the design.

Related · Visual weight · White space · Grid

A3 · MOVEMENT JUDGING

Rhythm

In a review

FIG 16 — THE SAME GAP FOR THE SAME JOB

How to see it. Measure the gaps: between headings and text, between sections, between slides’ title and content. Rhythm is the same gap used for the same job, so the measurements should repeat.

How it goes wrong. Spacing set by eye, so section breaks vary from page to page, or a run of slides where the content jumps up and down. Double returns and manual spaces break rhythm faster than anything else.

How to fix it. Set spacing in styles (space before and after, B2) and use a small set of steps, such as 8, 16 and 32. Where a template has a baseline grid, keep text on it.

Related · Consistency · Space before, space after · Baseline grid · Jumping

A4

SPACE

Part one of two

A4

What the emptiness is doing

Five words for the parts of a page with nothing on them, and for the parts with too much.

Density and noise describe a page that is too full. White space and negative space describe the empty areas, and figure-ground describes whether a thing stands clear of what is behind it.

The distinction between white space and negative space is worth keeping. All empty space is white space. Negative space is the empty space that forms a shape of its own, which a reader will see whether or not anyone meant it.

A4 · SPACE JUDGING

Density

In a review

FIG 17 — TOO DENSE TO PRESENT

How to see it. Count the separate elements on the page and estimate the share of it that is covered. For a slide to be presented, ask whether the audience can take it in while also listening. For a reference table, density may be the point.

How it goes wrong. A presentation slide with the density of a report page, which forces the audience to choose between reading and listening. The slideument and the wall of text (B7) are density failures.

How to fix it. Decide the job first. For the room, split the slide or move detail to the speaker notes or an appendix. For a reference page, keep the density and use hierarchy and grouping to make it navigable.

Related · White space · Noise, clutter · Slideument · Wall of text

A4 · SPACE JUDGING

White space

In a review

FIG 18 — GIVE IT ROOM TO BREATHE

How to see it. Look at the margins and the gaps between groups rather than at the content. If text runs close to the edges and blocks touch, the page has no room. White space does not have to be white: it is any area left empty.

How it goes wrong. Margins reduced to fit more in, content pushed to the edge of the slide (edge crowding, B4), or empty space left in awkward pockets between elements rather than gathered where it helps (trapped white space, B4).

How to fix it. Protect the margins first, then gather the remaining space between groups. Cut content before cutting space. When something must fit, shrink it rather than its surroundings.

Related · Margin · Negative space · Density · Trapped white space · Edge crowding

A4 · SPACE JUDGING

Negative space

In a review

FIG 19 — THE GAP BETWEEN TWO SHAPES READS AS A THIRD

How to see it. Look at the shapes of the gaps rather than the shapes of the things. Turn the page upside down if it helps. If a gap between two elements forms a shape of its own, the reader will see it too.

How it goes wrong. Two shapes placed so that the gap between them reads as a third, unintended one: an arrow, a face, a letter. Logos and diagrams fail this way most often, because nobody looked at the space.

How to fix it. Check the gaps as deliberately as the shapes. Where a gap forms something unwanted, widen it, close it, or change one of the shapes. Where it helps, as in a good logo, it can carry meaning.

Related · White space · Figure-ground · Logo

A4 · SPACE JUDGING

Figure-ground

In a review

FIG 20 — THE TEXT GETS LOST IN THE PHOTO

How to see it. Blur the image, or step back from the screen. If the text and its background merge into one texture, figure and ground are not separating. Check every place where text sits over a photograph or a pattern.

How it goes wrong. A title laid over a busy photograph, light text on a pale sky, or a chart drawn over a textured background. The contrast ratio may pass in one spot and fail a centimetre away.

How to fix it. Give the text a ground of its own: a solid panel, a knocked-back (ghosted) image (B11), or a crop that puts the text over an even area. Never rely on a drop shadow to rescue it.

Related · Contrast · Contrast ratio · Knocked back, ghosted · Reversed out, reverse type

A4 · SPACE JUDGING

Noise, clutter

In a review

FIG 21 — TOO MUCH NOISE AROUND THE CHART

How to see it. Point at each element and ask what it tells the reader. Borders, background textures, icons beside every heading, gridlines, drop shadows and logos repeated on every slide often answer “nothing”.

How it goes wrong. Default chart styling, decorative icons, boxes around everything, and template furniture repeated on every slide. Noise does not just waste space: it competes with the signal for the same attention.

How to fix it. Delete one element at a time and ask whether anything was lost. Lighten what must stay (gridlines, rules, frames) until it recedes. This is the data-ink idea (B8) applied to the whole page.

Related · Chartjunk · Data-ink ratio · Visual weight · Density

A5

USE

Part one of two

A5

Whether it can be read and used

Three words for whether the page works at all: whether the letters can be told apart, whether the text can be read at length, and whether a reader can tell what to do.

Legibility is a property of the typeface. Readability is a property of how it is set. The two are often used as synonyms, and keeping them apart tells you where to look: change the font, or change the setting.

Affordance comes from the design of objects and interfaces. It belongs here because documents have it too: a link that does not look like a link, or a heading that looks like a button.

A5 · USE JUDGING

Legibility

In a review

FIG 22 — THE 1 AND THE l LOOK THE SAME

How to see it. Test the characters that are easily confused: capital I, lowercase l and the numeral 1, capital O and zero, rn and m. Set them at the size they will be used and on the screen or paper they will be read on.

How it goes wrong. A face chosen for style whose I, l and 1 are identical, used for codes, reference numbers or passwords. Thin weights and condensed widths lose legibility first, especially on projectors.

How to fix it. For anything a reader must copy exactly, choose a face that tells similar characters apart, or a monospace (B1). Keep thin and condensed weights for large display sizes.

Related · Readability · Typeface · x-height · Aperture

A5 · USE JUDGING

Readability

In a review

FIG 23 — THE LINES ARE TOO LONG TO READ

How to see it. Read a full paragraph at the intended size and distance. Count the characters in a line (about 45 to 75 is comfortable, B2), and check that the eye can find the start of the next line without effort.

How it goes wrong. Full-width text on a wide screen or landscape page, so each line runs past 100 characters. Tight leading, centred paragraphs and justified text in narrow columns all reduce readability in a perfectly legible face.

How to fix it. Narrow the measure with columns or wider margins, open the leading to about 1.2 to 1.45 times the type size, and set long text flush left.

Related · Legibility · Measure · Leading · Justified

A5 · USE JUDGING

Affordance

In a review

FIG 24 — THAT BUTTON DOESN’T LOOK CLICKABLE

How to see it. Ask a first-time user what on the screen they think they can click, tap or type into. Anything they miss is missing an affordance. Anything they try that does nothing has a false one.

How it goes wrong. Buttons drawn as flat text, links that are not underlined or coloured, or decorative boxes that look like buttons. In documents, the same failure appears as a heading that looks like a link.

How to fix it. Give interactive elements a consistent cue, such as a filled shape, an underline or a colour kept for that purpose alone, and keep the cue off everything else.

Related · Consistency · Call to action (CTA) · Component

Part two of two

Words for things

519 terms in fourteen families, from the single letter to the printed file, the editor’s marks and the finished book. Like the moves, they name what you see.

• ONE Words for judging
• TWO Words for things

Fourteen families, from the letter to the printed file and the finished book. Each slide is a plate: a handful of related terms, defined, and one drawing that shows them, so that a word can be matched to the thing it names.

Every term carries one of eight kinds. Forty-six are defects, and the checklist at the end collects them by the moment they need catching.

B1

LETTERS

Part two of two

B1

Type anatomy, kinds and units

The smallest unit on the page. Knowing these words lets you say exactly what’s wrong with the type, instead of saying the font “looks off”.

Thirty-three terms on nine plates: 21 parts, eight measures, two formats and two defects.

The defects to watch for here: font substitution and faux bold, faux italic. All of them are collected in the checklist at the end.

B1 · LETTERS THREE TERMS

A typeface is the design. A font is one file of it.

Three words for one idea at three sizes: the design, one style of it, and every style it comes in.

Typeface

Part

Where you’ll meet it Brand guidelines.

Font

Part

Where you’ll meet it Every font menu.

Type family

Part

Where you’ll meet it “Use the Inter family throughout”

FIG 25 — ONE FAMILY, ONE TYPEFACE, ONE FONT

Software calls everything a font, so in conversation the words are interchangeable. The distinction earns its keep when something breaks: a computer can have the typeface installed and still lack the one font a file needs, such as the bold italic, and fake it instead.

B1 · LETTERS FIVE TERMS

Five kinds of face, told apart by the ends of their strokes

Most faces fall into one of five broad kinds, and the kind is usually visible in a single letter.

Serif

Part

Where you’ll meet it Book and report body text.

Sans serif

Part

Where you’ll meet it Most slide templates and screens.

Slab serif

Part

Where you’ll meet it Posters and headlines.

Monospace

Part

Where you’ll meet it Code and some data tables.

Script

Part

Where you’ll meet it Invitations. Rarely right at work.

FIG 26 — THE SAME THREE LETTERS, FIVE KINDS OF FACE

Look at the end of a stroke. A small finishing foot is a serif, a square block is a slab, nothing at all is a sans. Monospace gives every character the same width, which is why code and some tables use it. Script imitates handwriting and is rarely right at work.

B1 · LETTERS TWO TERMS

Some faces are drawn to be read, some to be seen

Two further ways to sort a face: by the size it was drawn for, and, for sans serifs, by where its shapes came from.

Display face, text face

Part

Where you’ll meet it Headlines vs paragraphs. Display faces fall apart at 10 pt.

Humanist, geometric, grotesque

Part

Where you’ll meet it A designer explaining a font choice.

FIG 27 — FACES FOR SIZE, AND THREE STYLES OF SANS

A display face carries fine detail that only survives at headline size: shrink it to 10 pt and the hairlines vanish. A text face is sturdier and more open, drawn for long reading. The three sans styles are a designer’s shorthand for a face’s character: warm and calligraphic, clean and constructed, or plain and industrial.

B1 · LETTERS FOUR TERMS

Four lines every letter sits between

Type is drawn on a set of invisible horizontal lines, and most talk about size is really talk about them.

Baseline

Part

Where you’ll meet it Aligning icons and numbers with text.

Ascender, descender

Part

Where you’ll meet it Lines set so tight these collide.

x-height

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Why two faces at 11 pt look different sizes.

Cap height

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Aligning icons with headings.

FIG 28 — THE LINES A LETTER IS DRAWN ON

The baseline is where letters sit. The x-height is the top of the lowercase and the cap height the top of the capitals. Ascenders rise above the x-height and descenders drop below the baseline. Two faces at the same point size can look very different sizes because their x-heights differ.

B1 · LETTERS THREE TERMS

The parts of a letter that decide whether it survives small sizes

The names for the strokes and spaces inside a letter, most useful when type clogs or blurs.

Counter

Part

Where you’ll meet it Type that clogs at small sizes.

Aperture

Part

SAY

AP·uh·chuh

/ˈæpətʃə/

Where you’ll meet it Small text on screens and projectors.

Stem, bowl, terminal

Part

Where you’ll meet it Type specimens.

FIG 29 — STROKES AND THE SPACES BETWEEN THEM

Counters and apertures are the spaces inside and around a letter. When they are small or nearly closed, letters fill in at small sizes, on a projector or on a phone, and an e starts to look like a c. Stem, bowl and terminal name the strokes themselves, which helps when comparing two faces side by side.

B1 · LETTERS FIVE TERMS

A good font holds far more than the alphabet

The extra shapes inside a well-made font, and the one that goes missing at the worst moment.

Italic, oblique

Part

SAY

ih·TAL·ik, oh·BLEEK

/ɪˈtælɪk, əʊˈbliːk/

Where you’ll meet it Choosing a face for emphasis.

Small caps

Part

Where you’ll meet it Acronyms in running text.

Ligature

Part

SAY

LIG·uh·chuh

/ˈlɪɡətʃə/

Where you’ll meet it Well-made text faces.

Glyph

Part

SAY

GLIF

/ɡlɪf/

Where you’ll meet it Font menus and icon fonts.

Character set

Part

Where you’ll meet it Missing accents, symbols or currency signs.

FIG 30 — INSIDE ONE FONT

True italics are redrawn, with a different a and a different f. Obliques are the upright letters slanted. Small caps are drawn at lowercase height, so acronyms do not shout in running text. A glyph is any single shape a font contains, and the character set is all of them: check it for accents, currency signs and arrows before choosing a face.

B1 · LETTERS TWO TERMS

How heavy the strokes are, and how much they vary

Two measures of a stroke: its thickness across the family, and the gap between its thickest and thinnest parts.

Weight

Measure

Where you’ll meet it “Use two weights at most”

Stroke contrast

Measure

Where you’ll meet it High-contrast faces thinning out on projectors.

FIG 31 — HEAVY OR LIGHT, EVEN OR UNEVEN

Weight runs from thin through regular and bold to black, and two weights are usually enough for a document. Stroke contrast is the difference inside a single letter. High-contrast faces look elegant in print and lose their hairlines on projectors and cheap screens, so they belong in large headlines, not slide body text.

B1 · LETTERS FOUR TERMS

Type has its own units, and screens have others

The four units type is measured in, two from print and two from the web.

Point (pt)

Measure

Where you’ll meet it “11 pt body, 28 pt titles”

Pica

Measure

SAY

PY·kuh

/ˈpaɪkə/

Where you’ll meet it Print column widths.

Em, en

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Spacing settings and dashes.

Pixel (px), rem

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Web and app design.

FIG 32 — 72 POINTS, 6 PICAS, 1 INCH

A point is 1/72 of an inch and a pica is 12 points, so six picas make an inch. The em is relative: it is whatever the current type size is, which is why spacing set in ems scales with the text. Screens measure in pixels, and the web’s rem is a multiple of the page’s base text size.

B1 · LETTERS FIVE TERMSTWO DEFECTS

Fonts are files, and files go missing

The formats a font arrives in, and what happens when a file is opened somewhere the font is not.

OpenType, TrueType, WOFF

Format

Where you’ll meet it Installing or licensing fonts.

Variable font

Format

Where you’ll meet it Modern web typography.

System font

Part

Where you’ll meet it Decks that must open correctly on any laptop.

Font substitution

Defect

Where you’ll meet it A deck opened on someone else’s computer.

Faux bold, faux italic

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Smudged, uneven type in passed-around decks.

FIG 33 — THE FILE, AND WHAT HAPPENS WITHOUT IT

A deck made with a font the next laptop lacks will open in a substitute: different widths, new line breaks, text spilling out of boxes. If the bold or italic is missing, the software fakes it by smearing or slanting the regular. The safe choices are a system font, or a PDF with the fonts embedded (B10).

B2

SETTING TEXT

Part two of two

B2

Lines, paragraphs and characters

Typesetting is what happens to words once they’re placed: how far apart, how long the lines, which marks. Most text defects come from leaving software defaults alone.

Forty-five terms on 11 plates: 24 parts, 10 measures, one stage and 10 defects.

The defects to watch for here: overset text, widow, orphan, runt, river, ladder, bad rag, dumb quotes, double space and stretched type. All of them are collected in the checklist at the end.

B2 · SETTING TEXT THREE TERMS

The space between lines, and between paragraphs

Vertical space in running text has three names, and the first two are the same idea in two trades.

Leading

Measure

SAY

LED·ing

/ˈledɪŋ/

Where you’ll meet it Line spacing settings. Body text works at about 1.2 to 1.45 times the type size (Butterick, n.d.)

Line-height

Measure

Where you’ll meet it CSS and Figma.

Space before, space after

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Replacing double returns between paragraphs.

FIG 34 — BASELINE TO BASELINE, AND THE GAP AFTER

Leading is the print word and line-height the web word: both measure from one baseline to the next. Paragraph spacing belongs in the style as space before and space after, never as an extra blank line, so that every gap of one kind is the same size and changes in one place.

B2 · SETTING TEXT FIVE TERMSONE DEFECT

The space across a line, from the whole line down to one pair of letters

Five words for horizontal space, from the length of the line to the gap between two letters, and the fault of forcing it.

Measure

Where you’ll meet it About 45 to 75 characters for comfortable reading (Bringhurst, 2004)

Tracking, letter-spacing

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Opening up all-caps labels.

Kerning

Measure

SAY

KUR·ning

/ˈkɜːnɪŋ/

Where you’ll meet it Large headlines.

Word spacing

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Justified text with gaping holes.

Stretched type

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Titles forced into a box.

FIG 35 — FROM THE LINE TO THE LETTER PAIR

Measure is the length of the line, and the single biggest factor in how readable a paragraph is. Tracking adjusts all the letters at once and is right for all-caps labels. Kerning adjusts one pair, and matters most in large headlines. Stretching the letters themselves is never right: change the size or the words instead.

B2 · SETTING TEXT FIVE TERMS

Four ways to line up a paragraph, and the edge they leave

Alignment decides which edge of a paragraph is straight. Whatever is not straight is the rag.

Flush left, ragged right

Part

Where you’ll meet it The default for most work text.

Flush right

Part

Where you’ll meet it Captions and labels beside an image.

Justified

Part

Where you’ll meet it Newspapers and books. Risky in narrow columns.

Centred

Part

Where you’ll meet it Titles and short display lines only.

Rag

Part

Where you’ll meet it “Fix the rag on that paragraph”

FIG 36 — WHICH EDGE IS STRAIGHT

Flush left is the default for work text, because every line starts in the same place. Flush right suits short captions beside an image. Justified text looks tidy in wide columns and opens holes in narrow ones. Centred text is for titles and short display lines only. The rag is the uneven edge, and it can be shaped.

B2 · SETTING TEXT FOUR TERMS

Moving a line in, or letting it hang out

Indents mark where something new starts. Hanging moves something outside the edge so the edge itself stays clean.

Indent, first-line indent

Part

Where you’ll meet it Books and long reports.

Hanging indent

Part

Where you’ll meet it Reference lists and bulleted text.

Hanging punctuation

Part

Where you’ll meet it Pull quotes and headlines.

Bullet, nested list

Part

Where you’ll meet it Slides and briefs.

FIG 37 — IN, OUT, AND OVER THE EDGE

A first-line indent marks a new paragraph, so it replaces the space between paragraphs rather than adding to it. A hanging indent keeps the first line at the margin and tucks the rest in, which is how reference lists and bulleted text should be set. Hanging punctuation pushes quotes and bullets just outside the edge, so the text itself aligns.

B2 · SETTING TEXT THREE TERMS

The invisible characters that decide where lines break

Line breaks are made by characters you cannot see. Showing them is the fastest way to fix a broken layout.

Hard return, soft return

Part

Where you’ll meet it Fixing a broken headline without breaking its style.

Non-breaking space

Part

Where you’ll meet it “10 km”, “Section 4”, “Mr Tan”

Hyphenation

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Narrow columns.

FIG 38 — THE HIDDEN CHARACTERS, SHOWN

Turn on the hidden characters (the pilcrow button in most word processors) and these appear. A hard return ends a paragraph and starts a new one with its spacing. A soft return breaks the line inside the same paragraph, which is how to fix a headline’s break without breaking its style. A non-breaking space glues “10 km” together.

B2 · SETTING TEXT FIVE TERMSTWO DEFECTS

Three dashes, two kinds of quote and a mark that is neither

The punctuation that a typewriter merged and typesetting keeps apart.

Hyphen, en dash, em dash

Part

Where you’ll meet it Edited and proofread text.

Smart quotes, curly quotes

Part

Where you’ll meet it Any polished document.

Prime

Part

Where you’ll meet it Measurements and coordinates.

Dumb quotes

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Text pasted from email or code.

Double space

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Older templates and pasted text.

FIG 39 — THE RIGHT MARK FOR THE JOB

A hyphen joins words, an en dash marks a range, and an em dash breaks a sentence. Quotes should curl: open and close. The straight marks (dumb quotes) arrive with pasted text, and the prime, which looks similar, is for feet, inches and minutes. Two spaces after a full stop are a typewriter habit with no place in typeset text.

B2 · SETTING TEXT THREE TERMS

Numbers have styles of their own

Many fonts carry more than one set of numerals, each drawn for a different job.

Superscript, subscript

Part

Where you’ll meet it Footnote numbers, chemical formulas.

Tabular figures

Part

Where you’ll meet it Tables, so columns of numbers line up.

Lining, oldstyle figures

Part

Where you’ll meet it Lining for data, oldstyle for prose.

FIG 40 — FIGURES FOR TABLES, FIGURES FOR PROSE

Tabular figures all take the same width, so columns of numbers line up digit under digit. Proportional figures look better in prose. Lining figures sit at cap height and suit tables and data. Oldstyle figures rise and fall like lowercase letters and sit more quietly in a paragraph. Superscript and subscript are small figures raised or lowered from the baseline.

B2 · SETTING TEXT FOUR TERMSONE DEFECT

Styles and frames: where layout software keeps the text

The machinery of layout software, and the fault that hides inside it.

Paragraph style, character style

Part

Where you’ll meet it Word’s Heading 1, InDesign styles.

Text box, text frame

Part

Where you’ll meet it PowerPoint, InDesign, Figma.

Threading

Part

Where you’ll meet it Multi-column and multi-page layouts.

Overset text

Defect

Where you’ll meet it InDesign’s red plus sign. Lost final paragraphs.

FIG 41 — TEXT FLOWS FROM FRAME TO FRAME, UNTIL IT DOESN’T

A style is formatting with a name. Apply Heading 1 rather than making the text bigger and bolder, and every heading changes when the style does. Text sits in frames, and threading links frames so text flows from one to the next. Overset text is what does not fit: hidden, still in the file, and easy to send to print without its last paragraph.

B2 · SETTING TEXT FOUR TERMS

Sizes chosen once, and corrections the eye asks for

Two systems that limit the choices, and two adjustments that break the measurements on purpose.

Type scale, modular scale

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Design systems.

Spacing scale, 8-point grid

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Design systems.

Optical alignment

Part

Where you’ll meet it Icons beside text, quotation marks at an edge.

Overshoot

Part

Where you’ll meet it Type design and logo work.

FIG 42 — TWO SYSTEMS, TWO CORRECTIONS

A type scale is a fixed set of sizes, and a modular scale makes each size the one before multiplied by a single ratio, such as 1.25. A spacing scale does the same for space, usually in multiples of 8 pixels, so every gap is one of a few steps. Both end arguments about whether something should be 17 or 18. Optical alignment adjusts what looks aligned rather than what measures aligned: a play triangle centred by its box looks off-centre. Overshoot is why an O is drawn slightly taller than an H, so the two look the same size.

B2 · SETTING TEXT THREE TERMS

Real copy, dummy copy, and making one fit

Copy is the words. Greeking stands in for them while the layout is drawn. Copyfitting reconciles the two.

Copy

Part

Where you’ll meet it “Send me the final copy”

Lorem ipsum, greeking

Part

SAY

LOR·em IP·sum

/ˈlɒrəm ˈɪpsəm/

Where you’ll meet it Early layouts. A defect if it survives to the final version.

Copyfitting

Stage

Where you’ll meet it Late-stage layout.

FIG 43 — THE WORDS, THEIR STAND-IN, AND THE FIT

Dummy text lets a designer work before the words exist, and it hides a risk: the real copy is always a different length. Copyfitting is the late edit that makes text fit its space, ideally by cutting words rather than shrinking type. Lorem ipsum that survives into a final version is a defect, and it happens more often than anyone admits.

B2 · SETTING TEXT SIX TERMSSIX DEFECTS

Six faults in a paragraph, all made by default settings

Six named faults in the setting of a paragraph. Each is easy to see once named, and each is fixed by editing or by a setting.

Widow

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Long reports.

Orphan

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Long reports.

Runt

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Headlines and slide titles.

River

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Justified text in narrow columns.

Ladder

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Hyphenation left unlimited.

Bad rag

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Narrow columns and slide text boxes.

FIG 44 — SIX FAULTS IN A PARAGRAPH

Widows and orphans are lines stranded at a page or column break. A runt is one word alone on a paragraph’s last line, and it is worst in headlines. Rivers run down justified text in narrow columns. A ladder is three or more lines ending in hyphens. A bad rag bites deep into the right edge. Rewording a line fixes most of them.

B3

EDITORIAL FURNITURE

Part two of two

B3

Words that live in the layout

Newsrooms and magazines named every recurring piece of text on a page. These names are useful well beyond journalism, because reports, briefs and decks reuse the same pieces.

Twenty-nine terms on seven plates: 28 parts and one defect.

The defect to watch for here: buried lede. It is collected in the checklist at the end.

This family is where the two glossaries meet. A lede, a deck or a caption is a writing job done inside a layout, and Instruments and Moves covers the writing.

B3 · EDITORIAL FURNITURE SIX TERMS

Above the headline, the headline, and below it

The pieces of text that cluster around a headline, each with a name and a job.

Headline

Part

Where you’ll meet it Every document and slide.

Eyebrow

Part

Where you’ll meet it Reports, web pages and slides.

Kicker

Part

Where you’ll meet it US newsrooms for the first, feature writing for the second.

Deck, dek

Part

SAY

DEK

/dek/

Where you’ll meet it Magazines and long-form web pages.

Standfirst

Part

Where you’ll meet it UK publications.

Strapline, tagline

Part

Where you’ll meet it Covers and brand guidelines.

FIG 45 — THE TEXT AROUND A HEADLINE

The eyebrow sits above the headline and says what section or topic this is. Americans often call it a kicker, which also means a story’s closing line. The deck sits below and says in a line or two why the piece matters. The British call it a standfirst. A strapline or tagline is a supporting line, and in branding the slogan that travels with a logo.

Reports and slides use the same pieces under other names. A slide’s section label is an eyebrow, and the line under an action title is a deck. Naming them helps a team agree which one is missing.

B3 · EDITORIAL FURNITURE FOUR TERMSONE DEFECT

The opening says it, and the second paragraph says why it matters

The first two paragraphs of a piece have names, and so does the commonest way to waste them.

Lede

Part

SAY

LEED

/liːd/

Where you’ll meet it Any piece of writing.

Nut graf

Part

SAY

NUT GRAF

/ˈnʌt ˌɡræf/

Where you’ll meet it Feature articles. Think pieces need it early.

Drop cap, initial

Part

Where you’ll meet it Editorial layouts.

Buried lede

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Reports that open with background.

FIG 46 — THE POINT, MOVED TO WHERE IT IS READ

The lede is the opening sentence or paragraph. The nut graf follows and says why the piece matters, which a think piece needs early. A drop cap marks the start. A buried lede is the main point hidden deep in the text, in reports that open with background: the same failure as anticlimax in Instruments and Moves.

B3 · EDITORIAL FURNITURE FIVE TERMS

Five ways to break up a long page

The furniture inside the body of a long piece, each with a different relation to the text around it.

Subhead, crosshead

Part

Where you’ll meet it Long documents.

Pull quote

Part

Where you’ll meet it Magazines, reports and posters.

Blockquote

Part

Where you’ll meet it Papers and web pages.

Callout

Part

Where you’ll meet it Key figures and warnings.

Sidebar, box-out

Part

Where you’ll meet it Case examples and definitions.

FIG 47 — THE FURNITURE INSIDE A LONG PIECE

A subhead divides the text. A pull quote repeats a line from it, enlarged to catch the eye, and a blockquote sets off a longer quotation from someone else. A callout stands apart because it is boxed, coloured or flagged. A sidebar is self-contained: it can be read on its own, before or after the main text.

The pull quote is the one most often misused. It must repeat something already in the text, and a reader who reads only the pull quotes should still get the argument.

B3 · EDITORIAL FURNITURE FOUR TERMS

Who wrote it, where, when, and who made the picture

The small lines that attribute a piece and its pictures.

Caption, cutline

Part

Where you’ll meet it Every figure.

Credit line

Part

Where you’ll meet it Photos and illustrations.

Byline

Part

Where you’ll meet it Articles and papers.

Dateline

Part

Where you’ll meet it News and dated briefs.

FIG 48 — ATTRIBUTION, ON THE PAGE

The byline names the author and the dateline says where and when the piece was written, which matters for dated briefs as much as for news. Every figure needs a caption (the newsroom word is cutline) that says what the reader is looking at, and every image needs a credit line saying who made or owns it.

B3 · EDITORIAL FURNITURE FOUR TERMS

The text that repeats on every page

Four pieces of furniture that belong to the publication or the page rather than to any one story.

Masthead

Part

Where you’ll meet it Newsletters and magazines.

Running head, running foot

Part

Where you’ll meet it Reports and books.

Folio

Part

SAY

FOH·lee·oh

/ˈfəʊliəʊ/

Where you’ll meet it Printed documents.

Footnote, endnote

Part

Where you’ll meet it Papers and reports.

FIG 49 — FURNITURE THAT REPEATS ON EVERY PAGE

The masthead is the title block at the top of a publication, and also its list of staff. A running head repeats a title or section name on every page (Word calls it the header), and a running foot does the same at the bottom. The folio is the page number with anything set beside it. Footnotes sit at the foot of their page, and endnotes are collected at the end.

B3 · EDITORIAL FURNITURE FOUR TERMS

The pages before the main text, and the pages after it

Long documents have a standard order, inherited from books, and each part has a name.

Table of contents

Part

Where you’ll meet it Long documents.

Front matter, back matter

Part

Where you’ll meet it Reports and books.

Epigraph

Part

SAY

EP·ih·grahf

/ˈepɪɡrɑːf/

Where you’ll meet it Books and speeches.

Colophon

Part

SAY

KOL·uh·fon

/ˈkɒləfɒn/

Where you’ll meet it The last page of books.

FIG 50 — A LONG DOCUMENT, FRONT TO BACK

Front matter is everything before the main text: title, contents, foreword. Back matter is everything after: appendices, references, index. An epigraph is a quotation at the start of a work or chapter. The colophon, on the last page of a book, records the fonts, paper and printing, and is a pleasant place to credit the people who made it.

B3 · EDITORIAL FURNITURE TWO TERMS

The text you reuse, and the line that asks for something

Two pieces of text with a job beyond the story: one repeats unchanged, one asks the reader to act.

Boilerplate

Part

Where you’ll meet it “About us” paragraphs and disclaimers.

Call to action (CTA)

Part

Where you’ll meet it Web pages, emails and closing slides.

FIG 51 — THE ASK, AND THE TEXT THAT NEVER CHANGES

Boilerplate is standard text reused unchanged, such as an “about us” paragraph or a disclaimer. It needs an owner, or it drifts out of date across a hundred documents. A call to action tells the reader what to do next. Most work papers lack one: the decision sought should be as easy to find as a button on a web page.

B4

PAGE AND LAYOUT

Part two of two

B4

Grid, space, sizes and screens

The page is structured by things the reader never sees. These words name that hidden structure, and the screen terms that now sit beside the print ones.

Twenty-seven terms on eight plates: 19 parts, two measures, three formats and three defects.

The defects to watch for here: trapped white space, tangent and edge crowding. All of them are collected in the checklist at the end.

B4 · PAGE AND LAYOUT FIVE TERMS

The structure under the page that the reader never sees

A grid is a set of columns, rows and margins that decides where everything goes. Five words name its parts.

Grid

Part

Where you’ll meet it Templates and design systems.

Column

Part

Where you’ll meet it “A 12-column grid”

Module

Part

Where you’ll meet it Dashboards and posters.

Gutter

Part

Where you’ll meet it Web layouts for the first, books for the second.

Margin

Part

Where you’ll meet it Every page setup.

FIG 52 — COLUMNS, MODULES, GUTTERS AND MARGINS

Columns divide the page vertically, and a module is one cell where columns and rows cross. The gutter is the space between columns, and in a book also the inner margin at the spine, so say which you mean. Margins frame the whole. A grid’s value is that every decision about position has already been made once (Müller-Brockmann, 1981).

B4 · PAGE AND LAYOUT THREE TERMS

Space inside a box, lines to snap to, and the tools that show them

Three words for the invisible aids that keep space consistent.

Padding

Part

Where you’ll meet it Web and app layouts.

Baseline grid

Part

Where you’ll meet it Multi-column layouts.

Guides, rulers

Part

Where you’ll meet it Every design tool.

FIG 53 — THE INVISIBLE AIDS

On screens, padding is the space inside an element’s edge and margin the space outside it, and confusing the two is behind many “why won’t this line up” arguments with developers. A baseline grid makes every line of text sit on a shared set of lines, so text in neighbouring columns aligns. Guides and rulers are the non-printing tools that show all of it.

B4 · PAGE AND LAYOUT FOUR TERMS

Four words from inside the design tool

The words a designer uses while working in Figma, Illustrator or PowerPoint, and that turn up in every request for a change.

Artboard, canvas

Part

Where you’ll meet it Figma, Illustrator.

Bounding box

Part

Where you’ll meet it Selecting anything in a design tool.

Layer, z-order

Part

Where you’ll meet it “Bring to front”, “send backward”

Group

Part

Where you’ll meet it Building diagrams.

FIG 54 — A CANVAS, TWO ARTBOARDS, ONE SELECTION

The canvas is the whole working area and an artboard is one page or screen on it. Every object has a bounding box with handles. Objects stack in layers, front to back, which is why something can be on the slide and invisible. Grouped objects move together, so ungroup before nudging one part of a diagram.

B4 · PAGE AND LAYOUT THREE TERMS

Boxes, the big picture on top, and running to the edge

Three words from web layout that now describe reports and slides as often.

Container, card

Part

Where you’ll meet it Web pages, dashboards and slides.

Hero

Part

Where you’ll meet it Websites and report covers.

Full-bleed

Part

Where you’ll meet it Cover images and section dividers.

FIG 55 — A HERO RUNNING TO THE EDGE, OVER CARDS

A container holds related content and a card is a self-contained one, with its own picture, heading and action. The hero is the large lead image or banner at the top. Full-bleed means running right to the edge, with no margin. In print, full-bleed needs bleed (B10), or the cut leaves a white sliver.

B4 · PAGE AND LAYOUT THREE TERMS

Pages come in pairs, and in two orientations

A printed document is seen two pages at a time, and the two sides have names.

Spread

Part

Where you’ll meet it Reports and brochures.

Recto, verso

Part

SAY

REK·toh, VUR·soh

/ˈrektəʊ, ˈvɜːsəʊ/

Where you’ll meet it Books. Chapters start on the recto.

Portrait, landscape

Format

Where you’ll meet it Page and slide set-up.

FIG 56 — A SPREAD: VERSO LEFT, RECTO RIGHT

A spread is two facing pages seen together, and a layout should be judged as a spread, not page by page. The recto is the right-hand page, which carries odd numbers, and new chapters start there. The verso is the left. Portrait and landscape are the two orientations. A landscape page in a portrait report has to be rotated to be read, so give it a reason.

B4 · PAGE AND LAYOUT FOUR TERMS

On a screen, the page has no fixed size

Four words for the fact that a web page is laid out again for every screen it lands on.

Above the fold

Part

Where you’ll meet it Newspapers and web pages.

Viewport

Part

Where you’ll meet it Web design.

Breakpoint

Measure

Where you’ll meet it “Collapses to one column below 768 px”

Responsive

Format

Where you’ll meet it Web pages.

FIG 57 — ONE PAGE, THREE SCREENS

The viewport is the visible area of the screen, and what fits in it before scrolling is above the fold, a newspaper term for the top half of a folded front page. A responsive layout adapts to the screen, changing at breakpoints: set widths where columns collapse or menus fold away. A design approved at desktop width has not been approved at all.

B4 · PAGE AND LAYOUT TWO TERMS

Paper sizes and screen shapes

The standard shapes a page or slide comes in.

Aspect ratio

Measure

Where you’ll meet it 16:9 slides, 4:3 older slides, 1:1 social posts.

A4, A3, A5, Letter

Format

Where you’ll meet it Print and PDF set-up.

FIG 58 — PAPER SIZES AND SCREEN SHAPES

A-series paper keeps one shape at every size: each is half the one above, so an A4 page scales to A3 without cropping. US Letter is wider and shorter than A4, which is why documents moving between the two lose their bottom lines. Slides are 16:9 now and were 4:3, and social posts are often square.

B4 · PAGE AND LAYOUT THREE TERMSTHREE DEFECTS

Three faults in a layout, all made by nudging

Three named faults of position, each the result of fitting things by eye.

Trapped white space

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Crowded posters and slides.

Tangent

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Images and text boxes nudged together.

Edge crowding

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Content that ignores the margin.

FIG 59 — THREE FAULTS OF POSITION

Trapped white space is empty space enclosed by elements, a pocket that reads as a hole rather than as breathing room. A tangent is two elements that just touch, so the eye snags on the point of contact: overlap them clearly or separate them clearly. Edge crowding is content pressed against the page or slide edge, ignoring the margin.

B5

IMAGES AND GRAPHICS

Part two of two

B5

Images, graphics and brand marks

Everything on the page that isn’t text. The single most useful distinction here is vector against raster, because it decides whether an image survives being enlarged.

Thirty-two terms on six plates: 19 parts, five measures, two formats and six defects.

The defects to watch for here: pixelation, jaggies, compression artefacts, distortion, clip art and watermark. All of them are collected in the checklist at the end.

B5 · IMAGES AND GRAPHICS SIX TERMSTHREE DEFECTS

Vector scales. Raster doesn’t.

The single most useful distinction in this family, and the three faults that follow from ignoring it.

Vector

Format

Where you’ll meet it Logos, icons, diagrams.

Raster, bitmap

Format

Where you’ll meet it Photos and screenshots.

Resolution

Measure

Where you’ll meet it “Is this high-res enough to print?”

Pixelation

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Logos pulled from websites into print.

Jaggies

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Low-resolution graphics.

Compression artefacts

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Screenshots saved as JPEG.

FIG 60 — THE SAME CURVE, AS SHAPES AND AS PIXELS

A vector graphic is stored as shapes, so it stays sharp at any size: logos, icons and diagrams should be vectors. A raster image is a fixed grid of pixels, so enlarging it shows the squares (pixelation) and the stair-steps on curves (jaggies). Saving a raster at low quality adds blotches and halos. A logo pulled from a website is almost always a small raster.

B5 · IMAGES AND GRAPHICS THREE TERMSONE DEFECT

Changing the frame of an image, and the one change never to make

Two honest ways to fit an image to a space, and one that damages it.

Crop

Part

Where you’ll meet it Every photo placed in a layout.

Mask, clipping mask

Part

Where you’ll meet it Circular profile photos.

Distortion

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Photos dragged by one handle to fill a box.

FIG 61 — CROP, MASK, AND NEVER STRETCH

Cropping trims the edges to change the framing. A mask shows part of an image through a shape, such as a circle, without deleting the rest, so it can be adjusted later. Distortion is what happens when an image is dragged by one handle to fill a box: faces widen, circles become ovals. Hold Shift, or crop instead.

B5 · IMAGES AND GRAPHICS SIX TERMSTWO DEFECTS

Where images come from, and what each one needs before it ships

The words for finding, holding and describing images, and two faults that come from cutting corners.

Stock image

Part

Where you’ll meet it Covers and section dividers.

Placeholder

Part

Where you’ll meet it Templates and drafts.

Alt text

Part

Where you’ll meet it Accessible documents and web pages.

Asset

Part

Where you’ll meet it “Send me the assets”

Watermark

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Images used without paying for them.

Clip art

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Dated templates. Reads as low effort.

FIG 62 — SOURCING, HOLDING AND DESCRIBING IMAGES

A stock image is licensed, and the watermark across a preview is a sign that nobody paid. A placeholder marks where a real image will go and must not survive to the final version. Alt text describes an image for people using screen readers. Assets are the reusable files themselves. Clip art reads as low effort in almost any work document.

B5 · IMAGES AND GRAPHICS FIVE TERMS

Small pictures, drawn pictures and pictures that explain

Five kinds of drawn image, from a single symbol to a whole explanation.

Icon

Part

Where you’ll meet it Interfaces and slides.

Icon set

Part

Where you’ll meet it “Don’t mix icon sets”

Pictogram

Part

Where you’ll meet it Signage and infographics.

Illustration

Part

Where you’ll meet it Covers and explainers.

Infographic

Part

Where you’ll meet it Public-facing summaries.

FIG 63 — FROM ONE SYMBOL TO A WHOLE EXPLANATION

An icon stands for an action or idea, and an icon set is a family drawn in one style: line weight, corners and level of detail. Mixing sets is the commonest fault. A pictogram is a simple figure, often repeated to show a quantity. An illustration is any drawn image. An infographic combines data, images and text to explain one topic.

B5 · IMAGES AND GRAPHICS SIX TERMS

Lines, edges and corners

Six words for the edges of things, most of which turn up in any request to “tidy up” a slide.

Rule

Part

Where you’ll meet it Under headings, between columns.

Keyline

Part

Where you’ll meet it Framing photos on white.

Stroke, fill

Part

Where you’ll meet it Every drawing tool.

Drop shadow

Part

Where you’ll meet it Buttons and cards. Easily overdone.

Hairline

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Fine rules in print.

Corner radius

Measure

Where you’ll meet it “8 px radius on all cards”

FIG 64 — THE EDGES OF THINGS

A rule is a line that divides, a keyline is a thin outline around an image or box, and a hairline is the thinnest line that prints, about 0.25 pt. Every shape has a stroke (its outline) and a fill (its inside). Drop shadows lift an object off the page and are easily overdone. Corner radius says how round the corners are, and should be one value everywhere.

B5 · IMAGES AND GRAPHICS SIX TERMS

A logo comes with rules about space and size

The parts of a logo and the rules that travel with it, all set out in the brand guidelines.

Logo

Part

Where you’ll meet it Every branded document.

Logomark, wordmark

Part

Where you’ll meet it Brand guidelines.

Lockup

Part

Where you’ll meet it Co-branded documents.

Clear space

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Brand guidelines.

Minimum size

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Footers and favicons.

Brand guidelines

Part

Where you’ll meet it Any branded work.

FIG 65 — AN INVENTED LOGO AND ITS RULES

A logomark is a symbol and a wordmark is the name set in type. A lockup is a fixed arrangement of the two, or of two logos side by side. Clear space is the empty area the logo must keep around it, usually measured in a unit taken from the logo itself, and the minimum size is the smallest it may appear. The brand guidelines hold all of it.

B6

COLOUR

Part two of two

B6

What the eye sees, and what the machine makes

Colour has two vocabularies. One describes what the eye sees. The other describes how a screen or printer makes it, and that is where most surprises happen.

Twenty-three terms on five plates: eight parts, five measures, six formats and four defects.

The defects to watch for here: colour shift, banding, vibration and colour-only meaning. All of them are collected in the checklist at the end.

In the field guides.

B6 · COLOUR THREE TERMS

Three dimensions of a colour, and the one that carries the contrast

Any colour can be described by three properties, and they behave very differently.

Hue

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Choosing a palette.

Saturation

Measure

Where you’ll meet it “Desaturate the background”

Value, lightness

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Checking a design in greyscale.

FIG 66 — HUE, SATURATION, VALUE

Hue is the colour family, saturation how intense or grey it is, and value how light or dark. Value does most of the work of contrast: two colours of different hue but equal value blur into each other, and vanish entirely when printed in black and white. Check a design in greyscale to see its values alone.

B6 · COLOUR SIX TERMS

Building a palette from one colour

The words for the colours a design uses and how they are related.

Tint, shade, tone

Part

Where you’ll meet it Building a palette from one brand colour.

Swatch

Part

Where you’ll meet it Brand colour libraries.

Palette

Part

Where you’ll meet it Brand guidelines and templates.

Primary, secondary colours

Part

Where you’ll meet it Brand guidelines.

Accent colour

Part

Where you’ll meet it Highlights in charts and slides.

Neutrals

Part

Where you’ll meet it Backgrounds and body text.

FIG 67 — ONE COLOUR, A WHOLE PALETTE

A tint is a colour mixed with white, a shade with black, a tone with grey: one brand colour can yield a whole family. A swatch is one saved colour. The palette is the set, usually primaries for most of the work, secondaries in support, one accent kept back for emphasis and neutrals carrying the bulk of the layout. Use the accent sparingly or it stops working.

B6 · COLOUR FIVE TERMS

One colour, two, none, or one fading into another

Five ways of using colour that are defined by how much of it there is.

Monochrome

Part

Where you’ll meet it Restrained, formal layouts.

Greyscale

Format

Where you’ll meet it Black-and-white printing.

Duotone

Format

Where you’ll meet it Covers and section dividers.

Gradient

Part

Where you’ll meet it Backgrounds and buttons.

Opacity, transparency

Measure

Where you’ll meet it Overlays on photos.

FIG 68 — HOW MUCH COLOUR, AND HOW IT BLENDS

Monochrome uses shades of one colour, and greyscale uses grey alone, which is what a black-and-white printer will make of anything. Duotone tints an image in two colours. A gradient blends one colour into another and should be smooth. Opacity says how see-through something is, and is the honest way to lay text over a photograph.

B6 · COLOUR FIVE TERMSONE DEFECT

Screens mix light, printers mix ink, and the two disagree

The vocabulary of how a machine makes a colour, which is where most colour surprises happen.

Hex code

Format

Where you’ll meet it Web and design tools.

RGB

Format

Where you’ll meet it Anything viewed on screen.

CMYK

Format

Where you’ll meet it Anything sent to print.

Spot colour, Pantone

Format

Where you’ll meet it Keeping brand colours exact in print.

Colour shift

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Bright RGB greens and blues.

FIG 69 — LIGHT ADDS UP, INK TAKES AWAY

Screens add red, green and blue light (RGB), and a hex code such as #1F3FD0 is just an RGB value written in base 16. Printers lay down cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink (CMYK), which cannot reach the brightest screen colours, so vivid greens and blues come back duller: colour shift. A spot colour is a premixed ink matched to a numbered standard, which keeps a brand exact.

B6 · COLOUR FOUR TERMSTHREE DEFECTS

One measure and three ways colour fails

The contrast ratio is the one colour measure with a published standard. The three defects are what happens without it.

Contrast ratio

Measure

Where you’ll meet it WCAG asks for 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text (W3C, 2018)

Banding

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Low-quality exports and print.

Vibration

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Red text on blue.

Colour-only meaning

Defect

Where you’ll meet it Fails for colour-blind readers and in greyscale.

FIG 70 — A MEASURE, AND THREE FAILURES

WCAG asks for a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text (W3C, 2018). Banding is visible stripes in what should be a smooth gradient. Vibration is two saturated opposite colours side by side, such as red on blue, which seem to shimmer. Colour-only meaning, such as red and green for status, fails colour-blind readers and every greyscale print.

WHERE NEXT

Continued in volume two, Proofs and Pixels

• VOL 2 Proofs and Pixels · B7–B14 Decks, charts, design process, print production, sign-off, editorial marks, publishing and interface components
• INDEX The phrasebooks glossary · every term in the four toolkits, A to Z

This volume ends with its last section, and volume two picks up at section B7. The toolkit closes with the defects checklist and the last pass, at the end of volume two.

The phrasebooks glossary lists every term in all four toolkits and opens it in the volume that holds it.

SOURCES

Eight works

The definitions are the source glossary’s own. Where a term rests on a published source, the source is named in the definition and listed here.

• VOLUMES Proofs and Pixels The phrasebooks glossary
• COMPANION Instruments and Moves
• BY geraldajam.com

Most of these terms are trade vocabulary rather than findings, so they have no single source. The few that do (leading, the measure, the widow, the F-pattern, the slideument, the data-ink ratio, the lie factor, the sparkline and the contrast ratio) cite it in their definition, and Appendix F records what was checked.

Instruments and Moves is the first glossary. It names what happens in the words: the instruments that explain why writing and speech succeed or fail, and the moves they diagnose.

Reference layer

Appendix

Appendix A

The A to Z index

All 210 terms in this volume alphabetically, with the family each belongs to, its kind and the source glossary’s definition. The phrasebooks glossary lists the terms of every volume.

Appendix B

The defects, by family

The 26 defects in this volume, in family order, with where each one turns up. The checklist at the end of volume two sorts them by the moment to catch them.

Appendix C

Words with two meanings

The six terms in this volume whose meaning depends on who is speaking.

Appendix D

The judging words as a checklist

Each word for judging reduces to one way of looking at a page. Extracted, in order from importance to use, they are a one-page review.

Appendix E

What this companion is not

Four limits, worth stating before the words are used on anybody’s work.

01Not a style guide Every entry is a word you’ll hear or need. Practices such as “one idea per slide” are left out, because they belong in a house style.

02Not complete The terms were chosen for people who make documents and decks, not for designers. A typographer or a printer would add hundreds more, and should.

03Not neutral about defects A defect is a fault in the ordinary case. A poster may break the measure on purpose, and a designer may set a runt for effect. The judgement still belongs to the reader in front of you.

04Not a substitute for a designer Naming a fault is the first step in a conversation with a designer, not the last. The words make the conversation shorter.

Appendix F

Verification register

Every cited claim in the source glossary was checked against the work it names. The items below are the corrections made and the points worth knowing.

Source trail

References

The works the source glossary cites, in its own list. Most of the terms are trade vocabulary with no single source. Those that rest on a published work name it in the definition.

1. Bringhurst, R. (2004). The elements of typographic style (3rd ed.). Hartley & Marks.
2. Butterick, M. (n.d.). Practical typography. https://practicaltypography.com
3. Müller-Brockmann, J. (1981). Grid systems in graphic design. Niggli.
4. Nielsen, J. (2006). F-shaped pattern for reading web content. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content-discovered/
5. Reynolds, G. (2008). Presentation zen: Simple ideas on presentation design and delivery. New Riders.
6. Tufte, E. R. (2001). The visual display of quantitative information (2nd ed.). Graphics Press.
7. Tufte, E. R. (2006). Beautiful evidence. Graphics Press.
8. W3C. (2018). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/