What a great list of design no-no’s by graphic design teacher, Jim Godfrey. Are you guilty of any of these?
I broke up the poster for easier reading on this blog, but you can see the full poster and even buy a copy HERE.
Here is a little background on the poster. (By Jim Godfrey)
Before we all started using computers to do our typesetting, there were professional typesetters who knew a lot about type and some rules for setting it appropriately. Much of this information is taught in typography courses at colleges and universities. As I taught students in my own typography class, I felt the need to have some sort of concise resource that would remind them of some of these typesetting conventions. You know, something that would lead them in typographic righteousness and keep them out of sin.
Many of the sins have been mentioned in a canon of typography books such as Robin Williams’s The Mac Is Not A Typewriter and Ellen Lupton’s Thinking with Type, Robert Bringhursts The Elements of Typographic Style. I am sure they also exist in other texts as well (like the Chicago Manual of Style, which I also consulted). It is also important to note that some of the sins are based on typesetting practices in the United States. For instance, it is more common in the UK not to tuck periods inside quotation marks (although I still think they should avoid this sin). As with all “rules” there are some sins that are worth committing under certain circumstances and others that one should never commit. For example, I hate seeing dumbquotes anywhere. Conversely, sometimes large amounts of reversed body text work aesthetically and conceptually with the design of the entire piece. True to life, we all have little sins we commit, I guess.
