‘Spacing’ booklet – E. B. Eddy Paper Company, Carl Dair, 1954

The cover of Spacing illustrates the area, or space, each character occupies. In metal that space could be ‘opened up’ by inserting thin metal strips of lead. The same principals apply equally to both photo and digital type.

An opening spread illustrating how spacing effects the meaning of words. Dair demonstrates that letters cannot exist without the space around them. Space is as important to the shape of the letters as are stems and strokes. Space not only helps us create letter shapes, space is also how we put those letters together into meaningful patterns that can then be read by others.