Re: underbar and hyphenation

[Jano Kula <jano.kula@tiscali.cz>]

Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Be warned, this entire reply does not answer any questions ;-)

OK

> Jano Kula wrote:
>> Not always. A year ago a graphic designer used it a quiet creative way 
>> in the book of interviews. All the questions or persons were underlined, 
>> often hyphenated. It was an experiment and it worked. By the way, some 
>> of the caption and figure alingment Mojca asked for was used there also. 
>> I've put few sample pages here (done in LaTeX):
>>
>> http://web.iol.cz/kula/sample.pdf (1,5MB).
> 
> Perhaps I am way too old-fashioned, but that looks rather ugly to me.

Sure you are ;) Modern designs are modern designs. But don't worry you 
are not the only one.

We have spent many hours, did many experiments and I was afraid of using 
it also. The result was a pragmatic solution when all the possibilities 
mentioned below were not usable in the book with many different 
situations we needed to handle.

I was very suprised when the designer (experienced, respected and well 
aware of typography history and present) came up with this solution. I 
can't say I like it, but in print it wasn't that ugly as I was expecting.

What I liked more than this solution was the courage to breake the rules 
we are all aware of (btw, like Godard used to do in his films; the book 
is a collection of interviews with him).

>> So not for emphasis but as a graphic element it is -- and will be -- used.
> 
> IMO,
> 
>    graphic element == emphasis

Imagine the form with prescribed empty lines (lines, dots, dashes) and 
the pieces of predifined text on them in the schoolbook.

> Backgrounds, colorization, larger or different typeface, indentation,
> additional vertical space, they are all tools to draw extra attention
> to  particular bits of the text.

Hence, whether we like it or not, we must be able to use underlining.

Greetings,

Jano