Top Highlights

• The Principle of Alignment states: Nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily. Every item should have a visual connection with something else on the page. The principle of alignment forces you to be conscious—no longer can you just throw things on the page and see where they stick.
• This category of type is sometimes called Clarendon, because the typeface Clarendon (shown below) is the epitome of this style. They are also called Egyptian because they became popular during the Egyptomania craze in Western civilization; many typefaces in this category…
• Don’t create relationships with elements that don’t belong together! If they are not related, move them apart from each other.
• A centered alignment often appears a bit weak. If text is aligned, instead, on the left or the right, the invisible line that connects the text is much stronger because it has a hard vertical edge to follow. This gives left- and right-aligned text a cleaner and more dramatic look.
• Although centered is a legitimate alignment, the edges are “soft”; you don’t really see the strength of the line.