Typophile

Rules for underlining

neill k

hey everyone,
I am always uncertain about the correct offset and weight of an underline, I realise that every case is unique depending on font, size, weight etc but i was wondering if there are any general rules of thumb or if it comes down to purely personal aesthetic choice?
thanks!
Neill

Joshua Langman

On the rare occasions that I use underscoring, I make it match the weight of the thin strokes of the typeface. This is often about .5 point for a text size serif font. I position it well below all descenders.

Captured from web.archive.org on 17 Jun 2011. view this capture