Time and tide wait for no man. Neither do trends in text alignment when it comes to your printing projects, leaving businesses agonizing about the best way to line up their words when designing their printed materials.
When it comes to text alignment I tend to agree with Peter Bialik, who said, “Right or wrong do not exist in graphic design. There is only effective and non-effective communication.” In other words, there is no wrong answer when you’re talking about alignment on your text. It’s all about what works best with your design.
School exams are left aligned and carefully spaced to make them as easy as possible for students to read.
But how do you make sure your customer hears what you’re trying to say? How do you make your text alignment as effective as possible? And how do you make your text alignment work with your design without making printing an unholy nightmare?
1) Use either left alignment or fully justified text. Fully justified text allows for more characters, but left alignment is more friendly and informal. And left alignment opens the window to additional white space at the end of the line, which you can use to add more graphics to your piece.
2) People read left to right. What’s on the left side of your page is going to be the first thing people see. Make it count.
3) Easy to read=more likely to be read. Period. Tiny font, too much text and overused space are the equivalent of a death knell for your piece.
4) Whatever you do, don’t forget to leave ½” between your text and the edge of your document. Nothing ruins a great piece of text like having the first three characters sliced off when it goes to press!