Full vs. left or right justification

You might not want to believe it, but there are still publications out there that have copy with horrible full justification. See this example:

Weird letter spacing and big gaps between some words have a very negative influence on the reading flow. A short piece of text is still readable but a long piece of text will probably not be read.

There are different kinds of justification:
 
 - symmetric justification (full justification)
 
 - asymmetric justification (left- or right aligned)
 
 - centred
 
 - text in shape (i.e. text in a circle)

 If you work with full justification, it is best to use hyphenation. Fully justified text without hyphenation kills the reading flow. In addition, you should always manually check the hyphenation at the end of every line (you will be surprised how some software programs hyphenate words!).

Generally, centred copy should only be used for very special text parts, such as quotes standing out of the main text. Also, for invitation cards, centred copy looks very good.

You can find out more about typography by clicking here.

#typography #fonts #justification