Every business needs a graphics department.

The hyphen, en-dash, and em-dash are often misused. Here’s a quick tutorial to give that added bit of class to your letters, forms, and flyers.

The Hyphen: Used for compound words, and to indicate that a word continues on the next line. Here’s a real-world example.

The En-Dash: About the length of the letter “n”. Used to indicate a range (distance, duration, scores). 10–20 meters, 1:00–1:30, Sat–Sun, 7–10 in favor of Player One.

The Em-Dash: About the length of the letter “M”. Used to denote a sudden shift in thought, a parenthetical comment, or an afterthought. A parenthetical comment—like this one—should be enclosed in em-dashes. However, an afterthought just has one at the beginning—like this.

A good typeface will already have a little space built in on the sides of these punctuation marks, so there is no need to add space.

Red Hibiscus will soon be packaging and selling their Kimchi. I’ll have to try it to find out if I like it, but I do like the label I designed for them. The idea is to have a simple label design that can be modified slightly for future products. Red Hibiscus closed for December and January, but I eagerly await their re-opening so I can get one of their fabulous sandwiches.