The 5 Deadly Design Sins: Sin #1

If you are not a professional designer, but enjoy doing layout and design, here are five things that designers everywhere ask, no beg, you not to do:

#1 Stretch your type. Have a lot to say, but not enough room to say it in? No problem — just squish your type until it fits in the space. Problem solved. Aaaahhhhh!
This is a cardinal typography sin. When you stretch or compress letters, you change their proportions. This is the font Agenda Light, at 37 points:

This is what it looks like stretched — at 25% of it’s actual width:

Notice how the tops and bottoms of the letters (the horizontal strokes) are now very thick — much thicker in proportion to the vertical strokes. This looks terrible!

If you need to take up more vertical space on the page, or you have a long headline, try a true condensed or compressed face. Many typefaces have them included as part of the font family. Here’s Agenda Light Extra Condensed:

See how the proportions are maintained? If you want to find font families that include condensed versions, myfonts.com is a great resource.

Stay tuned for sins 2-5!