Paragraphs part II
Limiting yourself to a rigid set of typographical criteria is a really bad idea. It’s worth exploring flexibility, variation and contrast in order to make your texts more readable and attractive.
A while back I wrote a rather long–winded “guide” to setting paragraphs on the web. In it, I went through a few basics: Setting a vertical rhythm, measure, white space &c.; stuff that’s pretty well known now, and perhaps has been widely accepted for a while.
(Incidentally: When you look back through blog posts what do you feel? Horror? Pleasure? Both? I kind of admire Simon Pascal Klein’s decision to ditch 260 blog posts and edit the remaining 20 into shape. A blog as a living body of work to be excised, remoulded and perhaps reinterpreted over time. How many articles would you keep?)
An example of a medieval text, complete with ornate drop cap
Anyway, I’ve changed my mind in two fundamental, related ways when it comes to paragraphs and web typography in general:
- A minorish point: Paragraphs look better with a half line break between them. The thought entered my head when I read a recent article by Joe Clark (Mocking Design Observer (2)). A few CSS changes later and the whole text on my blog has been pulled together; it looks more cogent and interrelated. (I still think indents make a text harder to read on the screen, especially when you’re setting a real piece of writing, complete with short, non–lorem ipsum paragraphs: Format rather than technology, perhaps.)
- An over-literal interpretation of a grid/rhythm is, well, misconceived. First, it lacks nuance: the math is more flexible than 24/48/72/96; there are fractions, gradients, contrasts et al. Secondly, it’s limiting in that it forces you to make decisions that are self–evidently bad in terms of readability, tone and appearance.
So in the future I’ll be looking at variation and using common sense more. What’s your approach? A cool, strict set of rules or something a bit more fluid?
The only thing you indent is a paragraph after a paragraph. Try it – you’ll like it.
Apologies for the misspell. Yes, I went with
p+p {text-indent: 24px;}for a couple of days but found it messed up the text. I tend not to write long paragraphs and I use bullets a lot, so I kept finding the odd indented line, all alone.It looks great when used with book–like texts.
Hope you’re not too fed up with kicking Design Observer…
I want to agree with Joe Clark that text-indents are OK on the web… but I can’t do it! My gut just keeps telling me it looks wrong.
Well, Joe’s got Simon indenting “properly”, and perhaps it works there: maybe it’s the fact that Simon’s writing is less bitty than mine, or maybe because the articles have nothing around them to compete for my attention.