TypeTalk: Fast Answers to Font Questions

TypeTalk is a monthly question-and-answer column on typography. Send your question to [email protected]. If we publish it, you’ll receive one Official Creativepro.com T-Shirt!
Curly Quotes Clarification
Q. I was taught that smart quotes had to be “curly” to be “smart,” but I see many typefaces from reputable foundries with quotation marks that aren’t curly. Why is that?
A. I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed, although I do understand the confusion. Smart quotes, or typographer’s quotes, do not have to be of the curly variety. True typographer’s quotes come in several flavors: Some are curly and some are chiseled; some are top-weighted, while others are bottom-weighted; some are angled in the same direction, some are angled in opposition. The uniting factor is that they all look different from the font’s inch and foot marks (also called primes), which are usually simple, vertical marks (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Smart quotes come in many shapes and sizes, such as these in the left-hand column, set in Adobe Chaparral Pro, Monotype Rockwell, ITC Galliard Pro, Terminal Design Giacomo 2.0, and ITC Adderville. Dumb quotes (right-hand column) are really inch and foot marks and aren’t sensitive to the font’s design.
Headline Alignment
Q. When laying out catalog spreads, is it best to have headlines center justified, left justified, or right justified?
A. To answer your question, I first need to clarify what you mean by “center justify.” In print as well as in most design software, justified refers to text that is aligned on both the right and left margin, which is achieved by adding or removing space between characters and/or words. Center justified means that the last line of a justified paragraph is centered with no altered spacing. I suspect that you mean center-aligned type, which is centered but doesn’t stretch or squeeze any spaces.
Headlines in print are commonly either center aligned (not justified) or left aligned. A left-aligned heading is a bit more formal and conservative than centered, but which treatment you choose is really a question of taste, not a matter of right or wrong. The difference in readability between these two treatments is negligible in a headline, which tends to be brief (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Headlines look best set flush left or centered (upper and center). Avoid justifying them (bottom), which distorts the spacing and reduces readability. Set in TerminalDesign Giacomo 2.0.
But if you’re referring to true justification, I would stay away from it in a headline, as the distortion to the spacing reduces readability and is considered in poor typographic taste, particularly when applied to upper and lower case.
Having said that, the typeface and treatment of a headline have a greater impact on readability and legibility than the alignment alone.
Amp Up the Ampersands
Q. I love the ampersand symbol. When is it appropriate to use?
A. The ampersand (&) is an abbreviation of the word “and.” It can be quite beautiful, especially in fonts that have unusual, decorative, or ornate versions (Figure 3). Unfortunately, due to their visual appeal they’re overused, often incorrectly so.

Figure 3. Adobe Garamond Premiere Pro has a wide variety of ampersands.
I advise using ampersands in headlines and titles, as well as in logos, company and business names (for examples, law firms and other partnerships), and where it’s a graphic element that’s part of an identity or branding (Figure 4). Do not use ampersands in running text; for example, “We talked about this & that.” However, the rules can vary for languages other than English.

Figure 4. These logos illustrate several appropriate and effective usages of the ampersand. Set in ITC Tiffany, House Industries Ed Script, ITC Franklin Gothic, and Font Bureau Relay Wide.
Small Cap Confusion
Q. I’m confused about the best way to access the true small caps in some OpenType fonts.
A. Many OpenType fonts have true-drawn small caps — a real godsend to designers who like to finesse their typography. Here’s how to access those glyphs in InDesign and QuarkXpress:
InDesign CS3 has two options for converting text to small caps, but they each behave differently, so pay close attention (Figure 5).

Figure 5. InDesign has two options for converting text to small caps.
Select the text you want to set in small caps, then go to Window > Type & Tables > Character and choose one of the following two methods:
1. Click the Character palette’s fly-out menu and select Small Caps. This will convert only the lowercase in selected text to small caps — either the true-drawn ones that are available with some OpenType fonts, or fake, scaled-down ones for fonts that don’t have the real thing. It will leave the caps unconverted.
2. Click the Character palette’s fly-out menu and select OpenType > All Small Caps. This command is available only for OpenType fonts that come with true-drawn small caps, making it impossible to wind up with the fake variety. However, it does convert all characters in selected text to small caps, including the full caps.
Note: If you want to stick to the true-drawn variety (as you should) but want a cap/small cap setting, first make sure the font contains real small caps, then convert the selected characters using method 1 above. You can tell whether a font has real small caps by checking the Glyph palette (Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs), or by seeing if the phrase “All Small Caps” under the Character palette’s OpenType option is unbracketed.
QuarkXpress 7 has three options for converting text to small caps. The first two access only true-drawn small caps, when they’re available. The third option creates fake, scaled-down small caps, which are typographically undesirable, so proceed with caution if you choose this method.
First select the text you want to be set in small caps, then choose one of the following three methods:
1. Click the OpenType icon on the Measurements palette and mouse up to Small Caps. Doing so converts only the lowercase in selected text to small caps. This feature is unbracketed only when true-drawn small caps are available for the selected font.
2. Click the OpenType icon on the Measurements palette and mouse up to All Small Caps. Doing so converts both the caps and the lowercase to small caps. Once again, this feature is unbracketed only when true-drawn small caps are available for your selected font (Figure 6).

Figure 6. QuarkXpress 7 has three small cap-conversion options.
3. Go to Style > Type Style > Small Caps. (You can also access this path in the Measurements palette.) Taking this route converts only the lowercase in selected text to small caps, but they’re the fake, scaled-down variety, even if a font has true-drawn small caps. If you want professional-looking typography, stick with option 1 or 2 and avoid the fake small caps.


Love type? Want to know more? Ilene Strizver conducts her acclaimed Gourmet Typography workshops internationally. For more information on attending one or bringing it to your company, organization, or school, go to her site, call The Type Studio at 203-227-5929, or email Ilene at [email protected]. Sign up for her e-newsletter at www.thetypestudio.com.

Ilene Strizver is a noted typographic educator, author, designer and founder of The Type Studio in Westport, Connecticut. Her book, Type Rules! The designer’s guide to professional typography, is now in its 4th edition.
  • dimbulb says:

    Unless things have changed recently and, I admit, it’s not something that I keep up regularly, inch and foot marks are not straight up and down. Usually they tilt to the right and you have to go to a pi font to find them. We always called those straight up and down things “beaver teeth” and never, ever used them. Someone told me that they were used in programming and that’s why they were on the keyboard in the first place, but that may not have been true. Can’t remember who told, it was so long ago. Just wanted to put in a word for what I understand is correct punctuation.

  • ec23designs says:

    anyone know the keystoke for the (p) Publisher symbol?? I’m using Windows, Indesgn CS3. The following are pretty common:
    Alt+0169 is (c)
    Alt+0153 is (TM)
    Alt+0174 is (R)

    BUT…what the he*** is (P) ????
    Thanks, Eric

  • Terri Stone says:

    Hi Eric,

    Many more people will see your question if you start a new thread in the Fonts and Typesetting forum :
    https://creativepro.com/forum/61

    Terri Stone
    Editor in Chief, CreativePro.com

  • Jay J Nelson says:

    You can create an acceptable small cap in QuarkXPress if you change the Small Caps preferences to 85% vertical and 90% horizontal. You’ll find that under Preferences> Default Print Layout> Character. We’ve been using that setting in Design Tools Monthly for 16+ years, and the result is pretty darned good.

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