The 33 Laws of Typography

Discover how the 33 laws of typography can help you design documents that are beautiful and easy to understand.

Introduction

• Introduction

1. How to Format a Document

• 01 Distrust default software settings
• 02 Ensure good contrast between text and background
• 03 Avoid chart junk and page junk
• 04 Enforce a consistent style within a document
• 05 Maintain a visual hierarchy
• 06 Group related page elements

2. How to Format Large Bodies of Text

• 07 Set printed body text from 9 to 11 points
• 08 Set body text two to three alphabets wide
• 09 Favor flush-left, ragged-right body text
• 10 Separate sentences with one space, not two
• 11 Don't allow less than seven characters on a line
• 12 Avoid bad paragraph breaks
• 13 Avoid line-breaking hyphens
• 14 Signal new paragraphs once, not twice
• 15 Break up large blocks of text

3. How to Format Smaller Blocks of Text

• 16 Emphasize ten percent or less of text
• 17 Avoid all caps and underlined text
• 18 Set acronyms and initialisms in small caps
• 19 Hang punctuation in small chunks of text
• 20 Hang bullets and numbers in lists
• 21 Avoid bad line breaks
• 22 Use symbols and special characters as needed
• 23 Use proportional old-style figures in body text
• 24 Adjust leading and kerning for large text
• 25 Verify software alignments optically

4. How to Use Punctuation Properly

• 26 Connect thoughts, using em dashes
• 27 Show ranges, using en dashes
• 28 Clarify, and improve readability, using hyphens
• 29 Designate feet and inches, with prime symbols
• 30 Replace missing characters with apostrophes

5. How to Choose Typefaces

• 31 Limit typefaces to two per document
• 32 Use typefaces that reinforce a document's mood
• 33 Choose serif or sans serif, based on aesthetics

Conclusion

• Goodbye