Unjust(ified) // VOID-STAR.NET

Unjust(ified)

3 Comments

1. 

   1028 days ago
   199 comments

   chelle

   “Rivers” were a mildly discussed subject in one or two courses I’ve taken involving typographical design, and I recall mention that in large portions of print (newspapers were of course the main example), the “rivers” are a minor loss to be taken with the beneficial effect of the grid being so pronounced. I’ve seen exercises done where a newspaper is reprinted without justification, and comparisons between websites with small-to-medium amounts of text that have been justified and left aligned.

   You’re “supposed” to notice a more comfortable reading experience when, say, lesser amounts of text on a screen are unjustified. I’m not saying I think it’s all cut-and-dry, I’m just saying I’ve heard it before. I think once I semi-recently saw a topic in TGT about it on character sites, and half the forum was screaming that they “hate” justified text because it causes rivers and hurts their widdle eyes.

   I notice “rivers” on occasion, but it’s more the fault of the stylishly tiny-ass column with larger (or just… not many) words per line. I don’t see them on your site because your text is small enough, but if I bump up the zoom on it I can see the Nile running through there. (Even so, your pronounced line-height increases the white space in general so it’s less noticeable than, say, if it weren’t there.) You also don’t have a great deal of hyphenated words, which last I recall have this irritating habit of being treated as a single long word by Firefox.

   I just checked this out both with and without glasses, and don’t see much of a difference, and I’m also in the single-eye-astigmatism bunch.

   Also, we’re all different! Gosh wouldn’t it make the world so much easier to design for if we all saw the same, although the “experts” certainly do try to pretend we do.

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   • 

     1028 days ago
     1,606 comments

     Dee

     I recall mention that in large portions of print (newspapers were of course the main example), the

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     • 

       1028 days ago
       199 comments

       chelle

       I meant more like, when there are many columns side by side, if there are “ragged ends” then the eye has less of a visual registration at which to stop. If you take Midryn’s site, for example, and unjustified the columns your eyes (which are likely already screaming bloody murder at the current color scheme anyway, haha god I really need to get to that…) would have a much more difficult time discerning where to visually carriage return as you’re reading the left column.

       I’m like… ninety percent sure you’ve already covered this. Go team preaching to the choir!

       But of course, gosh I love justified text anyway. What it’s supposedly “intended” for can kiss my ass, I just think it’s pretty.

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