Learn about ligatures and where they are used.
- [Instructor] Something else you're going to come across in the world of typography are ligatures. Simply put, a ligature refers to two, or sometimes more, characters replaced by a specially designed single character. The actual characters are still there. It's just that they're optically replaced by the ligature. So if you copy pasted them into a basic text program or something like an HTML editor, for example, the original characters would be what you'd actually see there. The ligatures are a visual replacement in desktop publishing software. Simply put, a ligature refers to two or sometimes more characters replaced a specially designed single character that has been created primarily to improve the look of characters that may appear to collide or their proximity just looks awkward. The actual characters are still there. It's just that they are optically replaced by the ligature. So if you copy pasted them into a basic text program or something like an HTML editor, for example, the original characters would be just what you'd see there. The ligatures are a visual replacement made by desktop publishing software. If we look at the line of text we have here you could perhaps see that with their normal spacing the capital T and the lowercase H don't look comfortable together at all. And the F of fine, the last of the double F's in spiffing, they're only narrowly avoiding those tittles. That's the name of that little dot over the lowercase I's and J's. And the F and L in flower are bumping their ascenders together in a most undignified manner. Now compare that to a line of text that has ligature replacements for those typographic faux pas. And we can now also see there are some other ligatures present also. The ligatures you're seeing in the case of the T and the H, the F and the I, and the F and L together, they're known as standard ligatures and an application like InDesign, Illustrator, or Photoshop can make those substitutions automatically with open type fonts. The other kind of ligatures that you're seeing here are called discretionary ligatures and these offer a more decorative option for you to use, well, at your discretion. And if the font you're using has these and potentially others included, then you may decide to use those to enhance the optical flow of your text.
Author
Released
2/27/2018- The creative process
- Layout and composition
- Grids
- Typography
- Color
- Transforming images and assets in Photoshop
- Drawing logos in Illustrator
- Designing graphics and documents in InDesign
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
Views
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Introduction
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Welcome1m 52s
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What is graphic design?1m 40s
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1. The Creative Process
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The creative brief1m 35s
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Research54s
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Ideation2m 41s
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Production2m 21s
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2. Layout and Composition
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The design space2m 50s
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Principles of layout2m 30s
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Grids1m 57s
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Exercise: Layout analysis1m 16s
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3. Typography
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The language of type2m 18s
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Type terminology3m 4s
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Type anatomy4m 41s
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Basic type classifications4m 47s
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Ligatures2m 17s
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Type measurement1m 59s
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Text elements: Character8m 4s
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Text elements: Paragraph6m 32s
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Selecting type4m 35s
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Basic typography guidelines6m 41s
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Type crimes4m 59s
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4. Color
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Color components3m 32s
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Monochrome and temperature3m 24s
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Color harmonies4m 23s
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RGB and CMYK4m 48s
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Process and spot colors4m 37s
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Color associations1m 19s
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Color blindness2m 51s
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5. Photoshop
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Photoshop quick start tour4m 14s
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Selectively changing colors4m 45s
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Cropping an image3m 24s
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6. Illustrator
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Illustrator quick start3m 18s
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Importing a rough sketch6m 7s
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Drawing the logo6m 20s
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Creating a color theme5m 44s
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Using the Touch Type tool3m 32s
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Creative Cloud libraries6m 40s
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7. InDesign
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InDesign quick start tour1m 54s
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Creating a new document1m 43s
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Working with master pages6m 53s
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Importing text into InDesign5m 58s
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Creating tables in InDesign7m 58s
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Finalizing the design5m 37s
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Conclusion
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Recommended courses1m 10s
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Video: Ligatures