Punctuation is vital to written communication. It
creates the pauses, inflections, hand gestures and
body language of the written word. If punctuation
is not used well, typographic communication can be
confusing, misleading and difficult to read.
BACKSTORY
The earliest alphabetic inscriptions had no such
symbols: no commas to indicate pauses, no periods
between sentences—there weren’t even spaces
between words.
Even early Greek and Roman writing did not
use any form of punctuation. It wasn’t until about
the 5th century B.C. that Greek playwrights began
to use symbols to distinguish the ends of phrases
in written drama to help the actors know when to
pause. Later, in formal inscriptions, word divisions
started to be indicated by a dot centered between
words. Still later, a space began to replace the dot and
gradually found general acceptance. By A.D. 600 the
practice was common.
In some early manuscripts, the punctuation
mark for a “stop” resembled our present colon: two
vertical dots. Later, one of the dots was dropped. The remaining dot served as a period, colon
or comma, depending on whether it was placed
even with the top, middle or bottom of the lowercase
letters.
A scholarly approach to change
Until about A.D. 800 there were no clear-cut lines
of demarcation in the design development of our
alphabet. Changes evolved gradually. The same
held true for punctuation. However, this changed
when Charlemagne ascended the throne of the
Holy Roman Empire. Not content merely to rule,
Charlemagne’s ambition was to construct a sweeping
revival of learning within his dominion. When
he met Alcuin, a well-known English scholar,
Charlemagne saw the means to his goal and invited
the scholar to organize the educational system of
the Holy Roman Empire. Accepting the challenge,
Alcuin’s first mission was to standardize a writing
style for all scribes to use. The main result was
the development of the Carolinian minuscule, the
forerunner of our own modern lowercase letters.
In addition, Alcuin took the first steps to systemize
punctuation.
Aldus Manutius, the Venetian typographer and
printer who gave us portable books and italic letters
in the late 15th century, further established the system
begun by Alcuin. Manutius used the period to indicate
a full stop at the end of a sentence and a diagonal
slash to represent a pause in reading.
More join the party
The basic forms for the semicolon and question
mark were developed in 16th century England. Most
typographic historians maintain that the question
mark is an abbreviation of the Latin word quaestio,
meaning what. At first the mark was printed as a
capital ‘Q’ atop a lowercase ‘o.’ Over time, this early
logotype was simplified to what we use today.
In the 17th and 18th centuries the apostrophe,
quotation marks, dash and exclamation point were added to fill out the basic set of punctuation
marks. The exclamation point (called a “bang”
or “screamer” by early 20th-century printers) also
descended from a logotype for a Latin word: io,
which means joy. The mark was first made by setting
a capital ‘I’ over a lowercase ‘o.’ Gradually, like
the question mark, this too was simplified into its
present form.
A lone straggler
As recently as the 1960s a new mark, the interrobang
(featured below), was suggested as a fitting end
for sentences like, “You did what?!” While the mark
was incorporated into one typeface—Americana—aside from a few random applications and an article
or two in graphic design magazines, it has not
enjoyed much exposure.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
There are about 30 punctuation marks. Most are
not used often—but all must be handled correctly.
The Chicago Manual of Style—considered by most
to be the standard guide to good graphic communication—explains in detail how each punctuation
mark should be used. Consider adding the manual
to your reference library. The following notes provide
a brief overview of how to use the most important
punctuation marks.
Periods indicate the end of a declarative or imperative
sentence. Period.
Commas indicate the simplest form of interruption
of thought or continuity. A comma is used to
join a clause to a conjunction, to join clauses in
a compound sentence, to separate an adverbial or
adjectival clause from the body of a sentence and to
separate a series of three or more elements.
Exclamation points make an outcry or emphatic
statement. Use sparingly!
Question marks indicate a query or express a
doubt. You knew that already, didn’t you?
Colons are used for the following: after the words
follows, the following, to introduce a list or series
and to introduce a formal statement or a speech
in dialogue.
Semicolons are used to separate two independent
clauses that are closely related; when commas are
already being used to separate words in a series, a
semicolon can be used to separate the longer components
of the series.
“Double quotes enclose words, phrases and sentences
that run into text,” he said.
“Single quotes enclose quotes within quotes,” she
added. “You mean when you quote a statement like
‘Single quotes enclose quotes within quotes,’ you
don’t use a double quote again within the quote?” he
asked. “That’s correct,” she replied.
Parentheses indicate sets of (1) amplifying, explanatory
or digressive elements, and (2) they enclose
numerals or letters marking divisions or enumerations
that run into the text. (They also enclose parenthetical
remarks.)
Braces show the relationship in tables between
groups of:
numbers such as {1, 2, 3, 4 …}
words like {one, two, three, four …}
and phrases such as {one cent, two cents …}
Brackets enclose editorial interpolations, explanations,
corrections or comments. They can be used to
take the place of parentheses within parentheses, to
enclose information that is not the original writer’s
work and to enclose italicized phrases such as [
to
be continued].
Dashes and hyphens are often confused but are
not interchangeable.
Hyphens are used to divide words that break at
the end of a line and to connect parts of compound
words such as go-between, ill-fated and run-of-the-mill.
En dashes are used to indicate a range of almost
anything with numbers, including dates, times and
pages in a document. Refer to The Chicago Manual
of Style, pages 187–188.
Em dashes are used for emphasis. Since they break
up the flow of the sentence—only use the em dash
to stress a point. An em dash can also indicate missing
words or a sudden break in thought—confusing,
isn’t it?
Apostrophes indicate possession or the deletion of
a letter or number in a contraction, don’t they? No
apostrophe is needed, however, in plural or possessive
abbreviations like MAs and 1920s.
Asterisks are used as reference points for footnotes.*
Ellipses indicate the omission of a word, phrase,
line or paragraph; they also indicate the end of a
thought that goes on, and on …
*They're pretty little things.
FINE MARKS OF DESIGN
Most punctuation marks work fine right out of the
box of the design application; typeface designers
have taken care of that for you. There are a few
instances, however, where you might want to adjust
the punctuation for added finesse. Guidelines for the
most important and common of these follow:
The right quotes
OK, it shouldn’t have to be said, but always use
“smart” or “curly” quotes when setting type—never
the foot or inch mark. A simple Preferences setting
in virtually any software application will make
smart quotes the default. Sometimes files of copy
containing the wrong quotes will arrive on your
desktop from writers, coworkers and even bosses.
Don’t assume copy providers will do the right thing.
Check all copy you receive.
Quotation marks are optional in a headline,
before a decorative initial cap or surrounding the
words yes and no—except in direct discourse.
Correct spacing
Also look out for double spaces after periods. When
people used typewriters—and monospaced fonts—two spaces were needed after a period to distinguish
the end of one sentence from the beginning of the
next. Even though typewriters haven’t been used for
word processing since Michael Jackson was known
only for his music, the addition of two spaces after a
period remains a deeply ingrained habit. One space
after a period is the right number. As with dumb
quotes, be sure the copy you receive is purged of
superfluous spaces. Sometimes an extra space sneaks
in around hyphens, too. Remove it. Hyphens should
not be surrounded by additional spaces.
Cap alignment
Hyphens, en and em dashes, parentheses, braces and
brackets look fine in lowercase settings because this
is the context in which these characters are most
often used, and type designers aligned them accordingly.
The problem is they can appear too low when
set next to caps and lining figures. The larger the
type, the more noticeable this will be. Use the baseline/shift feature of your layout program to raise the
character slightly until it’s optically centered with
the height of the caps or lining figures.
Hung punctuation
The practice of extending lines of text that begin or
end with punctuation marks slightly into the margin
to improve the optical alignment of the column
is referred to as hung punctuation. In flush-left
or justified text, a line that begins with quotation
marks or an apostrophe can appear to be indented. This is because these punctuation marks are smaller
than most other characters, with large amounts of
white space surrounding them.
The same problem can occur in the right margin
of flush-right or justified text. Lines ending with
quotation marks, apostrophes, periods, commas,
hyphens or asterisks will appear to end short of the
margin. If available, use the optical margin alignment
feature in your design application to create margins
that are visually smooth.
Downsizing punctuation
Punctuation almost always looks too big at display
sizes. If you are setting headlines, subheads or other
copy larger than 24 point, try downsizing the punctuation
by a few points.
Ellipses
Use a true ellipsis rather than three periods. Periods
space closer together than ellipses and create a
darker image on the page. Ellipses are also drawn
slightly smaller than periods so they don’t make too
strong a visual statement.
Eliminating clutter
A bunch of hyphens stacked up in the right margin—word breaks causing a visual “ladder”—is distracting
to the reader. Some say there shouldn’t be
more than two hyphens in a row at the end of a line.
An even better rule is that there shouldn’t be more
than two punctuation marks of any kind stacked on
top of each other.
An extra period is not necessary if a sentence
ends with etc.
Use only one exclamation mark at a time. Filling
copy with !!!! won’t make up for what the writing has
failed to do.
Dashes on a diet
Em dashes make a strong statement. Sometimes – if
space is added on either side – an en dash can be
used in place of an em dash. Some style manuals
support this idea—others don’t. Be sure that you are
in sync with the style required by your client.
Punctuation as design
Readers are intimately familiar with punctuation
marks used at sizes equivalent to the text. Consider
changing the paradigm. Very large punctuation can
be used as a familiar symbol to engage the reader or
focus the message. Consider the following:
Is punctuation important? You bet!
Should you know the rules? Absolutely.
Can punctuation be fun? For sure.
Go ahead; make your mark.
