Page 73 - Studio International - September 1968

Typographic Agoraphobia Walter Tracy has designed several type faces for the
British Linotype company, where he has been in
Walter Tracy charge of typographic development for the past 20 years.

The dictionaries have much to say about space, from the
general to the particular: 'The three dimensional
expanse in which all material objects are located and all
events occur' ; 'The interval between two or more points
or objects' ; 'An extent or area sufficient for some
purpose'; and so on. Our awareness of an object, our
understanding of its relationship to other objects, is due
as much to the space around it as to the form of the
object itself.
The letters of the alphabet are two-dimensional objects;
the space around and between them, and inside them, is
an essential factor in their identity. Even when the space
is eliminated from a letter, as in some whimsical or
provocative designs, the reader must mentally provide
the necessary space from prior experience before he can
identify the letter.
Letters which are written or drawn as the elements of a
particular word—in a monogram or company name, on
a book jacket, a protest banner, or lavatory wall—are, or From a New York photosetter's prospectus
may be, original and even unique, not only in their
corporate style but in their individual forms, the E in
one part of the word being different from the E in In the case of roman ( upright) capitals in a seriffed type
another part according to the letter forms adjacent to it. face, the letters with vertical stems are dealt with first.
The space in and around the letters is the result of Capital H is the 'standard' ; half the width of its counter
whatever amount of judgement is applied at the time. On is allocated to each side of the letter, and the same
the other hand there are the letters made to be composed amount to M, N, I, and the left side of B, D and so on.
into words or lines of text by someone other than the Capital 0 is the standard for 'round' letters. It is placed
designer of the letters. Printers' types are the obvious between copies of H and its side-spacing decided by
example, so we will call them typographic letters. There visual judgement. When known, the same amount of
is only one form of E or e or any other letter, and a space is allocated to the left side of C and G. The space
regulated amount of space is integral in the letter as to be given to the right side of those letters is judged by
supplied. associating them with H and 0. The side-spacing of the
Typographic characters are spaced on the type or other capitals is established by placing them between
matrix by a mixture of formula and judgement which standards and adjusting them until a balance is achieved.
ought to be better known. The lowercase is spaced in a similar way. The standards
are n and o. The space between the legs of n is the norm
for the side-spacing of characters which have vertical
stems — b, d, i, m and so on—small adjustments being
made to the norm according to the length of the upright
or the number of serifs. Similar principles are used for
italic characters, but a greater amount of optical judge-
ment is needed.
Serifs act as links between the letters of a word. Their
2. The Optima type-face as designed by Herman absence in a sans-serif type means that, though the
Zapf, and made under his supervision by the Stempel method of spacing is the same, the amount of side-space
type foundry of Frankfurt. A selection of characters allocated to sans-serif letters is sometimes less than in
is here arranged to demonstrate how the space between seriffed types.
letters is balanced with the space within them and In practice, the business of organizing the spacing of
with the weight of the strokes, to produce an typographic characters needs a good deal of care. It does
even texture and regular rhythm. not always get it : there are type designs in current use