5 ms·

Typography for Lawyers

84 points by fixie 16y ago

sunchild 16y ago
I like the spirit of this. Personally, I'd love to see lawyers move toward plain text (to make it easy to process legal documents as raw data) rather than toward more sophisticated presentation text, but that's just my bias. Of course, the two aims are not mutually exclusive.
javanix 16y ago
Convert straight quotes to curly quotes I agree with everything but the above.
- ugh 16y ago
  Why? Straight quotes are ugly. Someone put much work into designing those curly quotes. Use them.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  I too am mystified. Could you explain?
  - javanix 16y ago
    Curly-quotes (or at least the ones that do left-quote, right-quote anyway) play hell with UTF-8 encoding in HTML - for simplicity's sake I'd rather not deal with them, especially for documents that might (and should be) placed online for everyone to view.
    - ugh 16y ago
      Never had that problem. One big problem about curly quotes is that many default Windows fonts have their curly quotes all mixed up – Verdana is one of the offenders – as you can “see here” on HN. I then just refuse to use such shoddy fonts. Not the curly quote’s fault that the font is screwed up. (You can use incorrect UTF-8 characters to get the correct curly quotes when using something like Verdana, but as soon as your text is copied and the font is changed you again end up with the wrong curly quotes.)
theli0nheart 16y ago
Is there a "Typography for Programmers"? I could really use one of those...
- benhoyt 16y ago
  I just read these "rules", and it looks like just good typography -- whether you're a lawyer, programmer, or something else. I like his explanations of why each "rule" is necessary, too.
  - mikeklaas 16y ago
    Yes, but I could see how programmers would need a specific advice as well. Monospace fonts for terminal/coding use, for instance. Also, much of his advice doesn't apply to the web. Fonts designed for print often don't fare well on the screen, especially at small font sizes
- pmiller2 16y ago
  Try this: http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/memoir/memman.pdf http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/memoir... . It's the manual to the memoir documentclass for LaTeX. I learned a lot reading it, myself.
markbnine 16y ago
His follow up should be user interface for lawyers. This site needs better nav below the fold.
- sketerpot 16y ago
  As web sites go, this one is pretty decent. There are some navigation issues, sure, but the design is simple and the text is a readable size, with a good line width.
  - DTrejo 16y ago
    It kinda bothers me how the bars at the top and bottom are not centered.
mhb 16y ago
What does "SC" mean in the font descriptions? (e.g., http://www.linotype.com/1436/sabon-family.html?PHPSESSID=9dfbc37a2956eb010047fd0c8e5b4640 http://www.linotype.com/1436/sabon-family.html?PHPSESSID=9df...)
- ugh 16y ago
  Small Caps. That one doesn’t come with lower-case letters, it comes with small caps (look at the picture :).
- wizard_2 16y ago
  I'm flabbergasted that they include the php session id in the url after all this time. I don't believe its even an option since php 5 and has been disabled by default for many years.
paulgerhardt 16y ago
The bit about Times Roman and Times New Roman is fascinating: Think of Monotype vs. Linotype as the Depression-era Mac vs. Windows and you’ve got it...(In fact, when it came time to license fonts for their operating systems, Microsoft licensed Times New Roman from Monotype and Apple licensed Times Roman from Linotype, perpetuating the schism.) http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=687 http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=687
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
dzorz 16y ago
I have just found out that Mac has a lot of typography options built in so you can use it even in TextEdit. For example: http://tinypic.com/r/27y0uo3/5 http://tinypic.com/r/27y0uo3/5
- roryokane 16y ago
  How to open the Typography panel in the picture: 1. press Command-T or choose Format > Fonts > Show Fonts 2. click the gear icon in the lower left 3. choose Typography…
iamwil 16y ago
"The first problem is that it isn’t professional. Dressing properly is one way we signal to clients, other attorneys, and judges that we take our work seriously and we take court seriously." Though I also think typography is important, you end up with a lot of non-serious and bad lawyers simply looking serious with good typography because that's what the serious and good lawyers do. Bad content is still bad content no matter how you dress it up. And when typography is used as a signal, as more bad lawyers adopt it, it becomes a less and less effective signal--until it becomes standard fare, and not useful at all for telling serious lawyers from non-serious ones.
- pak 16y ago
  You sort of described the cyclical nature of fashion, without intending to. Things that are "in style" slowly erode in distinguishability as they become mainstream and overused, and then the better elements from older looks are remixed into something distinctive and those who have the motivation and wherewithal to try them out (you could call them the fashion-conscious) bring these new looks into vogue. You can find this in everything: music, clothes, art, not just typography. That's not to say it's a bad thing, it's just an evolution of human interest. Out of those fields, typography remains the most closed discipline (I would argue creating a professional typeface is on the level of carving a violin, it is much more inaccessible than combining clothing accessories or beats in audio production), and since the elite foundries are still moving into the digital age kicking and screaming, there is much interesting progress to look forward to. It will be a while before typography is starved for ideas and recycles lazy, supercommercialized dreck the way (in my opinion) pop music has gone for the YouTube/iTunes era.
- flipper 16y ago
  I've seen a few bad lawyers and there are a million and one things they'd rather do before worrying about their typography. It'll be a long while before the bad lawyers' typography is as good as the good lawyers' typography.
hy3lxs 16y ago
Thank you for telling people that it's one space after sentences and not two in modern typography. http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=12 http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=12
- turnersauce 16y ago
  I picked up the habit of putting two spaces between sentences in elementary school, and have not been able to shake it since. Luckily, this problem is automatically corrected in latex!
  - pbiggar 16y ago
    In latex source, I write each sentence on a new line. This makes the diffs in source control very clear. It also makes me conscious of very long sentences.
pak 16y ago
Kerning is not enabled by default in Word? http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=766 http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=766 You have to activate it by checking a box in the Font dialog box... so irrational it's painful to contemplate. I can imagine they did this for backward compatibility's sake (kerning would impact page layout), but consider the fact that 90% of the word processed documents produced today have crappy kerning because it was hidden behind a checkbox nobody will ever touch.
- panic 16y ago
  They could have just enabled it by default for new documents.

84 points by fixie 16y ago

I like the spirit of this. Personally, I'd love to see lawyers move toward plain text (to make it easy to process legal documents as raw data) rather than toward more sophisticated presentation text, but that's just my bias. Of course, the two aims are not mutually exclusive.

javanix 16y ago

Convert straight quotes to curly quotes I agree with everything but the above.

ugh 16y ago
Why? Straight quotes are ugly. Someone put much work into designing those curly quotes. Use them.
anigbrowl 16y ago
I too am mystified. Could you explain?
- javanix 16y ago
  Curly-quotes (or at least the ones that do left-quote, right-quote anyway) play hell with UTF-8 encoding in HTML - for simplicity's sake I'd rather not deal with them, especially for documents that might (and should be) placed online for everyone to view.
  - ugh 16y ago
    Never had that problem. One big problem about curly quotes is that many default Windows fonts have their curly quotes all mixed up – Verdana is one of the offenders – as you can “see here” on HN. I then just refuse to use such shoddy fonts. Not the curly quote’s fault that the font is screwed up. (You can use incorrect UTF-8 characters to get the correct curly quotes when using something like Verdana, but as soon as your text is copied and the font is changed you again end up with the wrong curly quotes.)

theli0nheart 16y ago

Is there a "Typography for Programmers"? I could really use one of those...

benhoyt 16y ago
I just read these "rules", and it looks like just good typography -- whether you're a lawyer, programmer, or something else. I like his explanations of why each "rule" is necessary, too.
- mikeklaas 16y ago
  Yes, but I could see how programmers would need a specific advice as well. Monospace fonts for terminal/coding use, for instance. Also, much of his advice doesn't apply to the web. Fonts designed for print often don't fare well on the screen, especially at small font sizes
pmiller2 16y ago
Try this: http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/memoir/memman.pdf http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/memoir... . It's the manual to the memoir documentclass for LaTeX. I learned a lot reading it, myself.

markbnine 16y ago

His follow up should be user interface for lawyers. This site needs better nav below the fold.

sketerpot 16y ago
As web sites go, this one is pretty decent. There are some navigation issues, sure, but the design is simple and the text is a readable size, with a good line width.
- DTrejo 16y ago
  It kinda bothers me how the bars at the top and bottom are not centered.

mhb 16y ago

What does "SC" mean in the font descriptions? (e.g., http://www.linotype.com/1436/sabon-family.html?PHPSESSID=9dfbc37a2956eb010047fd0c8e5b4640 http://www.linotype.com/1436/sabon-family.html?PHPSESSID=9df...)

ugh 16y ago
Small Caps. That one doesn’t come with lower-case letters, it comes with small caps (look at the picture :).
wizard_2 16y ago
I'm flabbergasted that they include the php session id in the url after all this time. I don't believe its even an option since php 5 and has been disabled by default for many years.

paulgerhardt 16y ago

The bit about Times Roman and Times New Roman is fascinating: Think of Monotype vs. Linotype as the Depression-era Mac vs. Windows and you’ve got it...(In fact, when it came time to license fonts for their operating systems, Microsoft licensed Times New Roman from Monotype and Apple licensed Times Roman from Linotype, perpetuating the schism.) http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=687 http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=687

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

dzorz 16y ago

I have just found out that Mac has a lot of typography options built in so you can use it even in TextEdit. For example: http://tinypic.com/r/27y0uo3/5 http://tinypic.com/r/27y0uo3/5

roryokane 16y ago
How to open the Typography panel in the picture: 1. press Command-T or choose Format > Fonts > Show Fonts 2. click the gear icon in the lower left 3. choose Typography…

iamwil 16y ago

"The first problem is that it isn’t professional. Dressing properly is one way we signal to clients, other attorneys, and judges that we take our work seriously and we take court seriously." Though I also think typography is important, you end up with a lot of non-serious and bad lawyers simply looking serious with good typography because that's what the serious and good lawyers do. Bad content is still bad content no matter how you dress it up. And when typography is used as a signal, as more bad lawyers adopt it, it becomes a less and less effective signal--until it becomes standard fare, and not useful at all for telling serious lawyers from non-serious ones.

pak 16y ago
You sort of described the cyclical nature of fashion, without intending to. Things that are "in style" slowly erode in distinguishability as they become mainstream and overused, and then the better elements from older looks are remixed into something distinctive and those who have the motivation and wherewithal to try them out (you could call them the fashion-conscious) bring these new looks into vogue. You can find this in everything: music, clothes, art, not just typography. That's not to say it's a bad thing, it's just an evolution of human interest. Out of those fields, typography remains the most closed discipline (I would argue creating a professional typeface is on the level of carving a violin, it is much more inaccessible than combining clothing accessories or beats in audio production), and since the elite foundries are still moving into the digital age kicking and screaming, there is much interesting progress to look forward to. It will be a while before typography is starved for ideas and recycles lazy, supercommercialized dreck the way (in my opinion) pop music has gone for the YouTube/iTunes era.
flipper 16y ago
I've seen a few bad lawyers and there are a million and one things they'd rather do before worrying about their typography. It'll be a long while before the bad lawyers' typography is as good as the good lawyers' typography.

hy3lxs 16y ago

Thank you for telling people that it's one space after sentences and not two in modern typography. http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=12 http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=12

turnersauce 16y ago
I picked up the habit of putting two spaces between sentences in elementary school, and have not been able to shake it since. Luckily, this problem is automatically corrected in latex!
- pbiggar 16y ago
  In latex source, I write each sentence on a new line. This makes the diffs in source control very clear. It also makes me conscious of very long sentences.

pak 16y ago

Kerning is not enabled by default in Word? http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=766 http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?p=766 You have to activate it by checking a box in the Font dialog box... so irrational it's painful to contemplate. I can imagine they did this for backward compatibility's sake (kerning would impact page layout), but consider the fact that 90% of the word processed documents produced today have crappy kerning because it was hidden behind a checkbox nobody will ever touch.

panic 16y ago
They could have just enabled it by default for new documents.