Good George, A

Full Glossary →

This term is an Emily-ism. Within known nomenclature, there was no word for this layout happenstance that kept cropping up, an in frustration Emily just named it George.

Put simply, the George is the spacing between grouped items — headers, titles, subtitles body text, lists, images with captions, etc. — each of which has a unique line height assigned to it in the style sheet. A Good George has logical spacing between items to visually group like items. A Bad George compromises obvious relativity of content.

The most common Bad George we see is where the space between a header of any sort and the first line of the copy beneath it is less than the line height of said copy itself. Or where the space between bullets is the same as the line height and therefor the bullets themselves aren’t visually distinct. It drives Emily bonkers.

Good Georges just are. Bad Georges pull focus, look amateur, and spotting one stops Emily in her stride every time. It has to get fixed, right then, before moving on.