Big American Night | Left or Justified?

Left or Justified?

After months of dithering about the size and color of the text on my site, I finally bumped it up a notch and pushed the color a few clicks closer to black. I worry that it looks clunky compared to the smart grey 10-point that I’ve been rocking for the last three years, but I believe that 11-point is much more legible. Maybe I’m just getting old.

I want to make things as legible as possible here at KinoSport (having an enormous color photograph in the background probably doesn’t help). Now that I’ve resolved the type size, I’m intrigued by paragraph alignment. I believe that justified type is universally easier to read. After all, this is how we read our newspapers, magazines, and books. Rather than seek out the end of each of line, the eye can switch to autopilot, mechanically scanning the same distance and thus allowing the details of the page to fade away.

Does the same logic apply to the screen? Powerhouse sites and services such as The New York Times and Google Reader favor left-alignment and, to their credit, left-aligned paragraphs aren’t riddled with the erratic gaps between words that you get with a poor justification job. Nonetheless, shouldn’t the conventions of print apply to the screen?

For now, I’m leaning towards justified type – what do you think? Compare the two paragraphs below and vote for your favorite!

Justified. I’m hard to read like graffiti but steady and the science I drop is real heavy. Radiant energy, that’ll be the penalty. Touch the third rail on the pain of remedy. The prescription’s one every hour, now it’s a habit if you need another hit from the freestyle fanatic. Attention: follow directions real close, keep out of reach of children and beware of overdose. Too many milligrams might make an iller jam, my rhyme is the rhythm of thoughts that kill a man. Ideas for the ear to fear might split ‘em, he’ll never forget ‘em and he’ll rest in peace with ‘em. At least when he left he’ll know what hit him: the last breath on the words of death was the rhythm. Now throw you hands in the air and yo, go. Rakim will do the rest of this slow. If I speed they know you’ll blow the hell up and if I slow up, catch up, hell no. Wicked as I kicked it, don’t need to remix it because I prefixed it, reversed and switched it to perform to perfection, section for section, rhymes keep connectin’. You’re guessing what’s next and your blood pressure rises as you damn near lost it, you hit the ground burnin’ and woke up frostbitten.

- Eric B. & Rakim. Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em, 1990

Left-aligned. Boogie Down Productions is made up of teachers, the lecture is conducted from the mic into the speaker. Who gets weaker, the king or the teacher? It’s not about a salary it’s all about reality. Teachers teach and do the world good, kings just rule and most are never understood. If you were to rule or govern a certain industry, all inside this room right now would be in misery. No one would get along nor sing a song ’cause everyone’d be singing for the king, am I wrong?! So yo, what’s up, it’s me again. Scott La Rock, KRS, BDP again. Many people had the nerve to think we would end the trend. We’re criminal minded, an album which is only ten funky, funky, funky, funky, funky hit records. No more than four minutes and some seconds. The competition checks and checks and keeps checkin’. They buy the album, take it home, and start sweatin’. Why? Well its simple, to them its kind of vital to take KRS-One’s title. To them I’m like an idol, some type of entity in everybodys rhyme - they wanna mention me? Or rather mention us, me or Scott La Rock. But they can get busted, get robbed, get dropped. I don’t play around nor do I fuck around, and you can tell by the bodies that are left around when some clown jumps up to get beat down, broken down to his very last compound. See how it sounds? A little unrational. A lot of MCs like to use the word dramatical. Fresh for 88, you suckas…

- Boogie Down Productions. My Philosophy, 1988

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02.10.09 | Uncategorized | design, typography | Tweet It

4 Remarks

cpalmatier says:
“left-aligned paragraphs aren’t riddled with the erratic gaps between words that you get with a poor justification job”—indeed! and right now, most web browsers do a poor justification job. until safari can do h-and-j's as if it had a little indesign monkey buried in its code, i'm a lefty on le web 99.9% of the time.

“shouldn’t the conventions of print apply to the screen?” not necessarily. horses for courses, innit? that said, i think yr choice of face and measure lends enough flexibility that it's going to look good either way, at least to me.

oh, and hi! i hope helsinki is treating you well.
dan visel says:
To justify things well requires hyphenation – which I'd also assume isn't coming to the web any time soon. To hyphenate correctly, you need to know what language text is in & you need to have hyphenation dictionaries; I imagine Apple could probably do this if they really wanted to, but it wouldn't work across platforms. But the irregular wordspacing forced by justification (esp. with a narrow measure) bothers my reading much more than a ragged right margin.

(I assume you've seen this attempt to apply Bringhurst's book to the web?)
James says:
Good points. Despite the narrow results of my scientific data poll, I'm leaning towards returning to the left-aligned treatment . . . and yeah, attempting to shoehorn the conventions of print design onto the screen is more a matter of wishful thinking than practical application.

Helsinki is good! Dark and cold right now, so it's a good place to brood about typography.
James says:
I hadn't seen that Bringhurst site – it's terrific! And I'm starting to agree: it might not be worth trading a ragged right for shotty word-spacing. Justified type looks better – but left-aligned probably reads better on the internets.

Now I need to figure out how to punch up these tiny comments….