A Typographic Quest, Number 4, The Organization of Space — booklet, Westvaco, Carl Dair, 1966

Carl Dair was deeply attuned to the role of space in typography. Both editions of Design with Type include chapters on the subject, but nowhere is his thinking on space more clearly expressed than in this fourth issue of A Typographic Quest, The organization of Space. He writes: “Space is meaningless until something happens within it; when there is a ‘happening,’ whatever it may be, the space becomes articulated and can communicate to the viewer.” And later: “All the visual arts are involved in the problems of articulating space.”

For Dair, the choice of typeface, its size, and even its colour may all be compromised if not properly placed in that space we call a page. The sensitivity to space that many typographers possess can be traced back to the early punch-cutters and type designers – a lineage Dair belonged to himself. For them, space was not passive but active – an essential partner in shaping form.

In The Organization of Space, this understanding is given visual expression. Through overlays and careful compositions, Dair shows how letterforms are defined not only by their strokes but by the space around and within them.

In 1966, this booklet was chosen as one of the best direct mail pieces in the United States. Dair received the award in September 1967. – Rod McDonald

Artifact Text

(Abridged from page 4)

Space is meaningless until something happens within it; when there is a “happening”, whatever it may be, the space becomes articulated and can communicate to the viewer. Even as random a happening as the spilling of ink charges the space with activity and tells the story of the forces involved in the splash of ink upon the clean surface.

All the visual arts are involved in the problems of articulating space. Architects and sculptors approach space as a three-dimensional problem, organizing it for human activity or human enjoyment. Painters and artists in the graphic fields work in a two-dimensional space, an unarticulated surface with length and width. All artists and designers are confronted with the same problem: here is a space, how do I divide it, define it, intrude forms into it, so that the space becomes alive with the meaning and function for which it is intended?