The Ultimate Guide to Manga Typesetting in 2022
The Ultimate Guide to Manga Typesetting
Manga typesetting creates a visual experience for the readers. Typesetting helps with immersion and creates a similar vibe to the original especially for manga which has been translated and localized into various languages.
Typesetting is the art of arranging texts, symbols, and glyphs on a page. This is different from typography because typesetting looks at how the typefaces are arranged while typography is the text creation itself–font, spaces, drop shadows, and emboss.
Today, we are going to look at typesetting and its role in Manga.
Modern manga has been around since the 1920s. Since then, millions of people all over the world have read and consumed manga for entertainment and academic purposes. Manga became popular because of its distinct and unique artworks as well as interesting plot lines to the point where a lot of live-action and anime adaptation have been made. Typesetting became a key factor in creating an immersive space for manga since texts do not take up too much space in the page, it became a challenge for typesetters to express the text through typesetting given its space. Underestimating the power of typesetting will bring you to a disadvantage since this is essential in communicating with your audience visually.
How do you avoid creating mistakes that will cost you more than it should have? Here are some tips on manga typesetting.
How to Create Masterful Typesetting in Manga
Are you looking for manga typesetting jobs? Or are you curious and want to try out how to typeset a manga? Worry not, you’re in the right place! This is the ultimate guide to Manga Typesetting.
- Get to know your fonts.
It doesn’t have to be a lot but rotating between various fonts will help you get your message across. In addition, using consistent fonts help with creating an immersive experience for the readers. Choosing the appropriate fonts for typesetting is a practiced skill. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier to do.
- Give it some breathing space.
Once you’ve selected the appropriate fonts to use for each panel, now you have to place it inside the bubbles. The speech bubbles are mostly where you see texts and if a reader sees a crowded bubble, this is not a good indication, and it will highly create an uncomfortable experience for them. Mimicking the shape of the speech bubble is a tip that every beginner typesetter should know. It looks softer and more comfortable on the eye when reading. Space is essential in giving the eyes some breathing room after the artworks, and it also emphasizes the texts in a full page panel.
- Use good editing software.
A good editing software is the software that you can use properly and comfortably. It may be any as long as it’s convenient and efficient for you to use. However, when working with a team, you should consider using the same program to eliminate the hassle of converting files from one type to another.
- Understand the arrangement of texts.
Japanese manga uses vertical and horizontal text orientation. In target languages, such as English or French, that use only horizontal orientation, it may be a challenge to adjust to the speech bubble provided by the original manga. You, as a typesetter must be careful when typesetting vertically since it might not be reader-friendly despite retaining the original format. Sometimes, you have to gauge if using vertical-alignment will prove to be beneficial in the target language’s typeset.
- Express through using various typefaces.
A font family has a lot of typefaces, examples of which are bold, italic, narrow, wide and more. Using this to your advantage when typesetting will help you use lesser fonts and make the overall work cleaner and more professional looking.
Masterful Manga and Comic Typesetting Services
CREATIVE CONNECTIONS & COMMONS INC. offers clean and high-quality manga and comic typesetting services. Ten years into the multilingual industry, we have mastered the art of translation, localization, and typesetting manga. We can guarantee high quality, fast, and reliable manga typesetting services. Not only that, we also offer manga coloring services, comic verticalization to keep up with the digital sphere. We are a one-stop shop for all of your manga needs.
