09 June 2022

Hung punctuation

Below is a recent cover of The Lancet.

Lancet cover that reads, "if the US Supreme Court confirms its draft decision, women will die. The Justices who vote to strike down Roe will not succeed in ending abortion, they will only succeed in ending safe abortion. Alito and his supporters will have women's blood on their hands."

The Lancet does a pull quote (an excerpt from an article inside) on every cover. I just wanted to draw your attention to a little detail that shows this is done by pros.

The opening quotation mark. Look at how it’s placed compared to the text below it. It pokes out a bit compared to the lines below.

Text with line showing the placement of the opening quote to the left of the text.

This is “hung punctuation.” The idea is that is enhances the sense of alignment and prevents unwanted spacing at the start of a line. This is one of those little details that professionals do, but that isn’t built into apps like Microsoft Office.

Here’s part of the quote done in PowerPoint so you can see where the opening quotation mark sits.

Text block reading, "“If the Supreme Court confirms itsdraft decision, women will die. TheJustices who vote to strike down Roewill not succeed in ending abortion," with the opening quote in alignment with other letters below it rather than the first letter of the quote.

While it’s probably not all that critical for body text, it is a nice little thing to keep in mind if you are ever using a pull quote.

External links

Type talk: To hang or not to hang...

1 comment:

Ken Hughes said...

FYI, the external link to TypeTalk doesn't go anywhere