Reply To: How do they do it? Max characters in a document template.

Hi RMVVV,

I’m not sure why my earlier reply did not show up? Maybe it was the link to the book I suggest reading in this regard. It’s by Josef Mülller-Brockmann and I’ll try again with a link to the publisher in a folowing post. Appologies if you’ve read it as a student, it should be a vital component of any reading list on a course in visual communication – it explains many techniques to achieve what you want to do.

By justified type I assume you mean in blocks rather than set ragged (I much prefer ragged set type for legibility). For examples of terrible type setting take a look at any UK tabloid paper such as the sun, for more considered examples I suggest London Review of Books, Japanese and Hangul typsetting is incredible in this regard but very much is a result of the character forms. Arabic can be used very sophistically when setting type justified due to the way characters are written with the same number of letter forms as Latin type but with up to three different letterforms depending where they are in the copy. Latin type in my opinion benefits from ragged setting in long form for legibility and aesthetic purposes, depending on the typeface in which it is set.

Treat this as an interesting design problem to solve and I’m sure you will achieve an interesting solution.

I hope this is of use.
Cheers, Sam