Extreme Makeover: Typography Edition--Part Deux, "The Golden Ratio"
When last we met, I threw out the question of how you might make a well-written opinion even more readable by changing only the typography. You had some great comments, many of which I had already been incorporating and several of which made me think even further.
Some of the guiding principles were that double spaced 12 point newspaper fonts are not as readable as smaller book fonts on shorter lines and line spacing in proportion to the font size.
But maybe more to the point, we don't create documents on typewriters any more. There is no need to restrict ourselves to documents that look like undergraduate term papers.
But now it is time for the first big reveal.
After the jump, we’ll see if an amateur trouble maker can make Chuck Norris--I mean Chief Justice Jefferson--more readable by changing only the court's typographic choices.
If you're going to start from scratch in making typographic choices, where do you begin when you are setting out your text? Matthew Butterick advises starting with the Body Text which is most of what makes up a document. Start with:
- Font
- Point Size
- Line Spacing
- Line Length
These four decisions will determine how the body text will look. See Matthew Butterick, Typography for Lawyers 145 (2010)
Taking the choices in that order:
- I ditched the Times New Roman for a book font like Century Schoolbook.
- I scaled it down to 11 point font based upon the research showing that fonts of this size are most readable, and bigger fonts are not.
- I chose 14 point line spacing based upon research showing that this ratio to 11 point font lends itself to good readability.
- I shortened the line length by having 2.23 inch margins--approximating what some typographers call the “golden ratio.”*
The other main changes were (largely out of habit) placing headings and titles in Helvetica (one point size smaller since they are in bold) and then using "proximity." I made a bigger gap between sections and pushed headings closer to the text they support and tried to separate Chief Justice Jefferson's text from the material merely supporting his text by placing secondary cites and parentheticals in footnotes. To deemphasize the footnotes, they are one point smaller than the text font.
I experimented with left justified text and hyphenation but could not bring myself to do it because I am addicted to clean lines on both sides of the page. I suppose that this addiction, along with my insistence of a half inch tab for each paragraph, makes me a quasi-typewriter Philistine.
But now to compare.
- Here is opinion just as the Court turned it out.
- And (drum roll) HERE is opinion after the typography has been changed.
Lo and behold, these types of changes make a SCOTX opinion look a little bit like an opinion from the United States Supreme Court. But it’s not because I was striving to look like the SCOTUS. I was just making judgments based upon readability, and a SCOTUS-like opinion was the result. The typography is not good just because the SCOTUS uses it. SCOTUS opinions look the way they do because they are using good typography.
And that is kind of the point. We and our rules ought to be striving for the best in readability and ease of use, whether we are creating slip opinions, briefs, letters or memoranda. If you started making typographic choices for the briefs that you write based upon readability, what would they look like? And where do the rules keep you from making the best choices possible?
Coming soon, we get Matthew Butterick's take on this same opinion and typographic challenge.
*Matthew Butterick, Typography for Lawyers 145 (2010)
Welcome to the Appellate Record-- --the online community and virtual watering hole for appellate lawyers and anyone else who is comfortable with their inner law nerd.
The new version definitely looks better (though I'll admit that I did not actually read it all).
I like putting some citations (e.g., string citations and long citations) in footnotes. I've tried to come up with a consistent theory for footnoting citations, but I agree with your previous post on this topic---there are no hard and fast rules. If there are only one or two case citations or a citation that has a parenthetical that flows well with the text, then I think citations are good in the text. Anything bulky and distracting with a tendency to interrupt goes in the footnote. (Yes, I realize that the footnote itself will cause an interruption.)
I will note that footnotes cause problems for those who read briefs on a computer screen. Unlike law clerks in federal court, law clerks at the Texas Supreme Court do not have vertical monitors allowing them to see the whole page at once. This results in a lot of back and forth scrolling when footnotes are used.
I'd suggest bumping heading IV down to a new page so that it is not split across pages (a point Butterick makes in his book).
Thanks so much for your comment, James. You're right about that heading, of course.
And I completely agree with you about the challenges of screen reading versus paper copies. You never know who in your audience will be reading a screen or reading a paper copy, no matter how a brief is filed.
I think we are just at the very beginning of figuring out good document design that will work for both formats. As the technology keeps changing (e.g., how common do vertical monitors become?) our approach to document design has to take those things into account.
I'm shocked that SCOTX puts a period at the end of point headings (even though the headings are full sentences). Perhaps, for your next project, you should do fix an opinion's grammar and usage.
Lisa, I only pick on the SCOTUS' grammar and usage--because they don't know who I am.
The new version is an improvement, but it still leaves a lot to be desired.
Most important: If you're going to use full justification, you need to hyphenate the text (by hand) in order to avoid having lines with excessive word spacing.
A related point: insert line breaks in URLs to avoid word-spacing and justification problems (such as in fn. 25). And speaking of URLs: don't underline them, and unless they're going to be clickable in the PDF version, don't print them in color.
The first-line indentation of paragraphs is about 3-4 times as big as it should be. The professional standard is an em-space -- roughly the width of a capital "M."
Change the indentation for block quotes to match the first-line indentation. Also the hanging indents for the headings.
If court rules allow it, set the block quotes at a smaller size than the main text. This sends an additional signal that the quote is a quote and not just L/R indented text. If the main text is 12 points, I like to use 11 for block quotes.
Eliminate the blank lines between paragraphs and reduce the amount of space between footnotes. Reduce the amount of space before the headings (one line is more than enough if there are no lines between paragraphs) and add about 3-6 points of space after headings.
Less important (more a matter of taste), don't use full justification on the headings.
I'm far more fussy than most lawyers on presentation of writing but mostly disagree with your re-formatting.
First, there is an appropriate style that eases the reading experience.
Second, yes, clearly some fonts are better than others. The serify ones like Century and Times New Roman are far better than ones like Courier and Arial and Helvetica.
Do not at all like mixing fonts in a brief -- it's up there with inappropriate fonts. Keeping a single font but switching to bold and italic, liberally but appropriately, has, literally, worked for me.
Some states, too, will not allow you to use fonts smaller than a set size -- I believe New York is one, at least on the appellate levels Not to mention the federal courts. (Props to the U.S. Supreme Court rules for turning me on to Century.)
But Mitchell, do you do what you do because it is objectively the best way to make writing readable, or is it just they way you've always done it? Part of the point here is that we ought to always be rethinking whether our habits are the best choices available. I used to do exactly as you do, but have become convinced by research (e.g., http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/rules/painting_with_print.pdf ) and further experience that I ought to abandon some of my habits in favor of something new.
Another point: if you're the court, and you can make the rules any way you want to, why impose rules or write opinions in typography that makes things objectively less readable?
The revised version is much more readable. But I do not like the proximity of the headings to the text below. To me, a well written heading psychologically prepares me for what is to come. I need a second to digest what the heading is telling me before I delve into the body of the text. When the heading is that close to the text, I just keep on reading as if it is the opening sentence of the paragraph. This, to me, defeats the purpose of the heading.
Thanks for your comment, Frank, and I totally see your point. A couple of things may be going on here to make my choice a bad choice.
1) The spacing may be more effective and less jarring with a little more white space involved on both sides, or when I do 12 pt. spacing before, 6 pt. after in a double spaced brief.
2) I found the headings too long--and they seemed longer still when one shortened the line length. I can only imagine that they become even less effective in a double column format. That in itself is an interesting example of how typography effects content and vice versa.
Kendall, it's time for all document producers to reexamine whether documents will be printed out more than they're read on-line.
For publication-type documents, I've been experimenting with using 20-point body copy and 22- and 24-point headings. That way, the PDF can be comfortably read as two full pages side by side ("two-up") even on normal-sized monitors. Adobe Reader can print such documents four-to-a-page for convenient reading in hard copy. See http://bit.ly/i4PYVO for an example; page 3 explains how to print four-to-a-page.
Thanks, D.C. To echo your first statement, I have noticed that we "amateur" publishers are not the only ones struggling with this issue. Some professionally published material on my e-reader looks awesome no matter how I monkey with font type and size, other publications look awful and stilted if I try to change anything.
To me this calls out for better technology. There ought to be some platform where the writer can make good typographic choices which can translate through or be changed and optimized at will for different platforms like printed hard copy or screen reading.