In typography, the overall shade of gray perceived by the eye, which may be interrupted by bad word breaks, inconsistent character spacing, or uneven leading. Typographic color can only be determined by reviewing type after setting.
Rivers are patterns of white that result from the occurrence of word spaces too near each other in adjacent lines, resulting in the appearance of continuous streams of white flowing through several lines.
Other typesetting problems which affect typographic color include inconsistent word spacing (commonly a problem in justified copy), widows and orphans, poor letterspacing (which can be rectified via kerning), uneven right margins caused by too many hyphens in a row, and an uneven, inconsistent appearance (including the density, or blackness, of the type).