Typography Mistakes I Still See in Professional Design Work

Normalizing Bad Typography

Enough designers making the same error long enough creates a false sense that the error is acceptable. I still see certain typographic mistakes in professional work from experienced designers. These aren't beginner errors anymore — they're normalized habits that deserve to be unhabituated.

Straight Quotes Instead of Curly Quotes

Straight quotes ('' "") are typewriter artifacts. Typographically correct quotation marks are curly — directional marks that open and close. "This is correct." "This is not." The difference is visible and matters in any work where typographic precision is part of the brand.

Most design software has smart quotes enabled by default. Turn it on if it isn't. Fix it in copy if straight quotes slipped through.

Hyphens Instead of Em Dashes

Hyphens (-) connect compound words. Em dashes (—) indicate a parenthetical break or interruption in a sentence. They're different characters with different functions, and using a hyphen where an em dash belongs is a typographic error.

Some writers use double hyphens (--) as a workaround. That's a typewriter convention that doesn't belong in designed work. Use the actual character.

Widows and Orphans

A widow is a single line of a paragraph left alone at the top of a column. An orphan is a single word left alone on the last line of a paragraph. Both break reading rhythm and look careless in professional typesetting.

Adjusting tracking slightly, changing the line breaks manually, or editing the copy length by a word or two resolves most widows and orphans. It's detail work, but it's the detail work that separates careful typesetting from careless composition.

Faux Bold and Faux Italic

When a typeface family doesn't include a bold or italic variant, design software creates a simulated version — a faux bold or faux italic. These simulated variants look wrong. The proportions are off, the stroke weight is incorrect, the letter spacing is wrong.

Use typeface families with the weight and style variants you actually need. If bold and italic are required, use a typeface that provides them natively.

Incorrect Apostrophe Direction in Decade References

"The '90s" — note the direction of the apostrophe. It should curl toward the missing number, like a closing single quotation mark. Word processors frequently autocorrect this to an open single quotation mark (the wrong direction). It's a small error that reveals inattention to typographic detail.

Multiple Spaces After Periods

This one comes from typists trained on typewriters, where the mechanical spacing required two spaces for visual clarity. In typeset text with proper kerning, one space after a period is correct. Two spaces creates visually disruptive white gaps in body text.

If the source copy has double spaces, find-and-replace them. Don't carry the typewriter convention into typeset work.