German text runs about 30 percent longer than US English. If a layout was built for English headlines that just fit, the German version will not.
The three usual failures
- Headlines that wrap onto a third line and push the hero image off the page
- Buttons and callouts with fixed widths
- Tables where column headers were set in a single line
What we do instead
We design the English master with a text expansion margin of at least 35 percent in every text frame and use paragraph styles with “keep options” so the layout degrades gracefully.
Design for the longest language you will ever ship, then let English look spacious.
Priya Raman, Senior Designer
Read more about our design process.
