Spacing: get it right or pay the price

It wasn’t the smell of the paper, the opacity of the ink, or the fidelity of the impression that had the final say in the quality of a word (although those things can help). It was simply the negative space. The answer had been in front of my face the entire time, but I was too focussed on the black shapes to realize.

The more I questioned it, the truer it became: divine spacing is perfect balance. The mind can rest, knowing that no possible improvement to the shapes can be made.

After many teaching experiences trying to explain this in the most clear way possible, I have broken the techniques for achieving desirable spacing into a two-pronged approach.

Counterspace Equals Letterspace

When studying pointed pen calligraphy with Erik Van Blokland at Type Media, he would glance over our practice sheets, and simply draw a red dot within the counter of a letter, and another one beside it. “You should make those two equal.” he’d say, and despite having no idea what he meant, I would nod furiously in agreement. Luckily, after seeing a similar mark on everyone else’s sheet, I slowly got the picture. There was supposed to be a relationship between the space inside of n, and the space between two ns.