Carolina focused on gaining a sensitivity to the fundamentals: for example, setting a measure appropriate to the size and leading (or linespacing, or line-height) of the text, and noting how each of these three variables interplay with one another. Additional emphasis was given to traditional and nontraditional ways of lining up and breaking up text. “It’s nice to let your paragraphs hang up like from a clothesline; The pants hang longer than the shirt, and the shirt hangs longer than the undies, but they form a single line across the top.”

When possible, begin a subsequent column of text with the beginning of a new paragraph, giving it an indentation so it’s clear it has continued from the first column; but unlike the first paragraph of the first column where no indentation is necessary. These are traditional rules of course, and sometimes it’s best to deviate from the norm. In this case, a number of other options were explored including flush left text with added linespacing, Large indent, exdent, dropcap, etc..

As an additional exercise, Carolina’s pupils were given worksheets onto which they could plan a text layout by arranging shaded blocks of color. While the execution of the principles at hand originated in print, the workshop’s teachings remain equally relevant as applied to print or screen.

Carolina de Bartolo is a typography and design history educator in San Francisco and the author and creator of Explorations in Typography and its brand new companion app. She developed the Explorations exercises in her book to help her students practice both “in sport and in earnest” and eventually discover their passion for the art and craft of fine typesetting.

posted by David Sudweeks