FUNCTION

A colon indicates the beginning of a quote, a list, a ratio within numbers, or it can be used to indicate time in between two numbers.

HISTORY

The colon has been used in various languages for various types of uses. It began to be used as we do nowadays by writers during medieval Europe.

DESIGN

The colon is built with two periods on top of each other. The top one is placed just below the x-height and the bottom one sits on the baseline.

TYPOGRAPHIC RULES

There is no space before the colon in a sentence, and is followed by a space (U+00A0). But this rule doesn’t apply to every Latin language!