PROPORTION, BALANCE AND SPACING
Symmetry is necessary to beauty. This law of esthetics is as applicable to typography as to sculpture and architecture. Proportion and balance—the things that make for symmetry in typography—are obtained only by giving the work more attention than seems necessary to the average producer and buyer of printing.
Why should the printer worry about esthetics—about symmetry? What has art to do with printing, anyway? Questions such as these find too frequent voice in the printing trade, coming from the employee whose interest and ambitions end when he “gets the scale,” and the employer who is satisfied merely to deliver so many pounds of paper and ounces of ink for so much money. Pity the man whose work is drudgery and who denies that art and beauty are meant for him. He has his antithesis in the man who, appreciating the higher blessings, neglects to give value to the more common and practical things.
EXAMPLE 50
One method of determining the page length. The page should measure diagonally twice its width
There have always been two opposing classes—in religion, politics, art, music, business. On all questions one portion of humanity is “for” and the other “against,” mostly because of the influence of environment upon tastes and interests. Mozart’s and Beethoven’s music charms and enthuses and also lulls to sleep. One class should try to understand the other. Each has good reasons for its preferences, but none at all for its prejudices. The painter Rubens, gathering inspiration in the courts of royalty, portrayed luxury and magnificence. Millet, painting in a barn, pictured poverty, sorrow and dulled minds. What pleased one found little sympathy in the other. During the Middle Ages learned men talked, wrote and thought in Latin, and when it was proposed to translate the Scriptures into the language of the masses these men held up their hands in horror.
Not so many years ago the book printer looked upon the job printer as the Roman patrician looked upon the plebeian, but the job printer has absorbed dignity and typographic taste from the book printer. While the book printer’s highest ideal is a volume with uncut leaves ornamenting the book shelves of the collector, the job printer’s mission is to be all things to all men. He prints the refined announcements of art schools one day and another day finds him placing wood type to tell the story of a rural sale of articles “too numerous to mention.”
There should be more sympathy between the book printer and the job printer, and also between the printer who regards his calling as a business and the printer who regards it as an art. The employer and employee who consider printing only a means to an end and that end money, are as near right and as near wrong as they who produce art printing for art’s sake and forget the pay envelop and the customer’s check. The first starve their souls, the last their bodies.
EXAMPLE 51
Another method of determining the page length. The length of the page should measure fifty per cent more than its width. These examples also present proportionate margins, the foot margin in each instance being the largest
The printer who does things artistically in an economical manner “strikes twelve” (in the slang of Elbert Hubbard). Printing need not be shorn of beauty to be profitable to both printer and customer, tho beauty too conspicuous turns attention from the real purpose of the printed job—which, in the case of a booklet, is the message the words convey. An equestrian statue of Napoleon should feature the great conqueror, not the horse, but would be impossible with the horse left out.
Art is essential to printing; so are Uncle Sam’s specimens of steel engraving. The more art the printer absorbs the larger should grow his collection of these engravings. Study of art arouses ambition; ambition brings better and harder work. It reveals in the typographer the difference between mere lead-lifting and the artistic selection and arrangement of types. The boy who sweeps the floor and does his best is nearer art-heaven than he who sets type and cares not how he does it.
The printer who determines to learn about art—who makes continued effort to find the reason why one man’s work is good and another’s is not, will be surprised and gratified at the new world that unfolds itself as he studies. He will find that altho having eyes, he has really seen only as he has appreciated. There is no easy road to the appreciation of the beautiful. Art does not consist merely of a set of rules to be observed; there are few beacon lights placed by those who have trod the road. Beyond a certain point the novice must depend upon intuition or “feeling.” Great painters have been asked their method of producing masterpieces, and have been unable to explain.
EXAMPLE 53
In which vertical lines predominate
In introducing the subject of “Proportion” it is well first to dispose of book pages. In olden times the sizes of books were known by the number of folds to a sheet of paper about 18 × 24 inches. A book made from such sheets, folded once into two leaves, was known as a folio volume and measured about 12 × 18 inches. Folded twice into four leaves, a quarto, measuring 9 × 12 inches. Folded three times into eight leaves, an octavo, measuring 6 × 9 inches. Paper is now made in a variety of sizes, which allow of individual preferences being satisfied. For the sizes of catalogs 9 × 12 and 6 × 9 are becoming standard. The sizes do not depart far from the rule of proportion which holds that the width of the page should be two-thirds its length.
Examples [50] and [51] illustrate two widely-used methods of determining page lengths. By the first method (Example [50]) the page should measure diagonally twice its width. In this instance the width being eight picas, the diagonal measurement is sixteen picas. By the second method the length of the page should measure fifty per cent more than its width. Here the width being eight picas, the length is twelve picas. These measurements may or may not include the running titles or folios.
EXAMPLE 54
Compare with Example [53]
If only small margins are possible, the page (exclusive of running title) should be about centered, with a slight inclination toward the head and back. But when margins are reasonably ample the page should set liberally toward the head and back; the margins of the head and back (exclusive of the running title) should be about the same, the outer side margin should be fifty per cent more than the back margin, and the foot margin one hundred per cent more than the back margin. Various explanations of this rule have been put forward, a few of which are: The old book-owner making marginal notations as he read, needed wide margins for the purpose. Early manuscript books were bound on wood, and this wood was extended at the foot and used to hold the book when reading. Two pages being exposed to view were treated as one page, much as double columns are now treated. As book illuminators required room for their handiwork the margins may have thus originated. The principal reason why we should observe such margins is that the arrangement has the sanction of long usage and the approval of the best bookmakers since books were written.
The job printer, it is reasonable to suppose, is more interested in proportion as it refers to display typography. He asks: What relation has type, in the shape of its face, to the page of which it is a part? And the answer is: A type-face should conform in the proportion of its letters to the proportion of the page. Let us thoroly understand this. In Example [52] there are shown three widths of type—condensed, medium and extended. The type of medium width is more used than the condensed or extended kind, and most pages have a proportion such as Example [55]. From viewpoints of both economy and art, the type-face of medium width should be given preference when selecting type equipment. Condensed types are properly proportioned for use as headings in the narrow columns of newspapers and for narrow folders and booklets.
EXAMPLE 55
The conventional page shape, with type and ornament in proportion
EXAMPLE 52
Three widths of type-faces
EXAMPLE 57
Compare with Example [56]
Many of the laws that are necessary to good typography also govern the other arts. As an instance, in architecture it is requisite that a tall and narrow building contain a preponderance of vertical lines, a feature most noticeable in church buildings of Gothic style (Example [54]). Because the extent of vertical lines is greater than that of horizontal ones in a condensed type-face, such a face is proper for a long and narrow page (Example [53]). The proportion of page shown by Example [55] is about that met with most frequently in printing production. Here the vertical lines are in a slight majority, but it is interesting to observe that in Example [56] where the page is more wide than long, horizontal lines are more numerous than vertical ones.
EXAMPLE 56
In which horizontal lines predominate
It is not always possible to follow out in every detail the requirements of proportion. Architects must sacrifice much in the interests of utility and in deference to the wishes of their clients. Printers must do likewise, but as a rule they travel farther from true art principles than do architects. Consider the contrasting proportions of the structures in Examples [54] and [57]. In Example [54] notice that the openings have been made to conform to the general proportions, and that vertical lines have been multiplied to emphasize narrowness and hight. As a contrast, in Example [57] observe the width of the openings; how it blends with the general proportion of this structure. Now to ascertain that typography parallels architecture compare Example [53] with 54, and [56] with 57.
EXAMPLE 59
EXAMPLE 60
The type-faces of these two examples are not in proportion with the pages
An exaggerated idea of the relation of lines to proportion is furnished by Examples [62] (see insert) and [63]. The vertical lines of Example [62] run with the length of the page as smoothly as a canoe floating down stream. The horizontal lines of Example [63] are irritating in their disregard of proportion. For the eye to take in at a glance both the page lines running vertically and the rules running horizontally is as difficult as watching a three-ring circus. Examples [59] and [60] also illustrate this point.
I have prepared in Example [58] (see insert) a page in which not only are ornament, type-face and page-design in proportion, but the characteristics of the ornament are reflected in the border, and the tone is uniform.
Irregularity of form is valuable in breaking monotony, and in some forms of art may be essential, but as contained in Example [61] this feature is inharmonious. Before experimenting with variety or becoming agitated about monotony the typographer should perfect himself in the things that make for regularity. When he learns to set a page that is harmonious and in proportion then it may be well to introduce irregularity—in homeopathic doses.
There is much uncertainty manifested among typographers as to the proportionate strength of display lines on a page. A type line is proportionately large or small as it contrasts with its environment. Gulliver was a giant when among pigmies. The foremost citizen of a country town is considerably reduced in importance when he rubs elbows with the big men of the cities. The homely adage that “a big frog in a small puddle is a small frog in a big puddle,” is applicable to typography. A display line surrounded by other type lines (Example [64]) must be made larger or by strengthened strokes made bolder than when alone on the page (Example [65]). The old City Hall in New York is claimed to be the most beautiful work of architecture in the city, but is ridiculously out of proportion with the towering office buildings surrounding it.
EXAMPLE 63
Horizontal lines are not suitable for a vertically narrow page (See Example [62], insert)
EXAMPLE 61
Type-faces and borders are mismated
Examples [66], [67] and [68] are studies in the proportion of a type-face to the page of which it is a part. In Example [66] the page is largely covered with type, treatment that is necessary on poster, dodger and other printed matter that must force its presence upon the public. In Example [67] the page consists mostly of blank space, the type standing modestly and apologetically in the midst of that space. This treatment is proper on dainty works of poetry or when the demands of extreme refinement are to be satisfied. Example [68] is the “happy medium,” the compromise—a strength of display that will be satisfactory in almost every case. This method of arriving at correct treatment emphasizes the need in the typographer of a judicial as well as an artistic temperament. The wise judge knows that truth is about midway between the claims of opposing counsel.
EXAMPLE 64
EXAMPLE 65
A display line surrounded by other type lines must be made larger than when alone on the page, to obtain proportionate emphasis
Balance is another important subject, as it has a big share in making typography good or bad. The builder works with plumb-line and spirit-level that his walls may be in perfect balance, tho sometimes he is tempted, as the printer is tempted, to work away from the center of gravity. In Italy there is a building, an architectural curiosity—the leaning tower of Pisa (Example [73]) in the construction of which gravity has been defied to the limit, and in Canada only recently a bridge in course of construction on this gravity-defying principle, fell in a mass into the river. In typography, safety from blunder lies in type lines horizontally centered. Typographic experts experimenting with out-of-the-center balance, both succeed and fail. Compositors imitating them generally fail. Example [76] is an out-of-the-center arrangement that is fairly successful. Balance is saved by the type-lines in the upper left corner and by the border surrounding the page. Examples [69] and [75] show out-of-center balance adapted to a business card and a booklet cover.
EXAMPLE 69
Out-of-center balance, adapted to a business card
While horizontally the center is the point of perfect balance, vertically it is not. Stick a pin thru the very center of an oblong piece of cardboard and twirl the card; when movement ceases the card may not hang uprightly. Mark off the card in three equal sections and stick the pin thru the horizontal center of the line separating the upper two thirds. After being twirled the card will cease to move in a perfectly upright position. Example [71] shows a word placed in exact center, yet it appears to be low. Example [72] shows a line above center at the point of vertical balance. On a title-page, business card, and on most jobs of printing the weight should come at this point. The principal line, or group, should provide strength necessary to give balance. Example [70] presents a page with type group and ornament placed unusually high. The typographer responsible was undoubtedly testing balance to the limit.
EXAMPLE 66
Type proportionately too large for the average page
EXAMPLE 67
Type proportionately too small for the average page
EXAMPLE 68
This proportion is about right for the average page
EXAMPLE 62
In which the lines of the design run in the proper direction. Arranged by Will Bradley
EXAMPLE 70
In which the upper type group is unusually high. Page by D. B. Updike
Sometimes the customer gets a notion he wants a type-line placed diagonally across the page in a manner like Example [74]. Such arrangements generally show lack of imagination and are crudely freakish. There are so many orderly ways of arranging type that such poorly balanced specimens are deplorable.
EXAMPLE 74
A disorderly arrangement
Spacing is seemingly one of the little things—merely incidental to the mechanical practice of typography. When the apprentice compositor is told to divide his spaces evenly among all the words in a line; not to thin space one line and double-thick space another; to transpose a two-point lead, or make some other what to him may appear to be trivial alteration in spacing, he judges his instructor to be over-particular. Yet the proper apportionment of space on a page determines the tone and the balance and aids in giving proportion and emphasis.
In type-making, when a font of type is designed, not only is each letter considered separately, but in combination with every other letter of the alphabet, that when the letters are assembled into words space may be evenly distributed. The designers of the best type-faces have given attention to this feature and have demonstrated that legibility is increased with proper space distribution. Because of the excessive open space it contains, the capital L gives the most trouble of any letter used as an initial. As part of the word “Millinery” the irregularity of spacing is particularly prominent (Example [79-a]). Partly to overcome this irregularity the companion letters should be spaced as shown in 79-b. When the letters A T occur together, and the space between them should be decreased, it is necessary to file the metal in the upper right of the type A and the metal in the lower left of the type T.
EXAMPLE 71
A word placed in exact center appears to be low
EXAMPLE 72
Showing the point of vertical balance
With roman type-faces, important words are usually emphasized by italics or small capitals. The Germans, using for body purposes a text letter which has no italic or small capitals, space the letters to get emphasis (Example [80-a]). Letter-spaced words thus used are perhaps as neat as italic, and the idea may well be adapted to roman types (Example [80-b]).
EXAMPLE 73
Balance out of center
EXAMPLE 75
The ornament balances the design. Page by School of Printing, Boston
EXAMPLE 76
Out-of-center balance. Page by Will Bradley
The relation of lines to proportion, as illustrated by Examples [62] and [63], is also to be considered in the composition of plain reading pages. Example [77] shows how the effect of horizontal lines is given by narrow spacing between the words and wide spacing between the lines. This gives a result, like that of Example [63], contrary to the principles of proportion. How this may be overcome is illustrated in Example [78], which contains the same amount of space between the words as is between the lines. This treatment not only gives better proportion, but improves the tone of the page.
EXAMPLE 77
The effect of horizontal lines is given by narrow spacing between the words and wide spacing between the lines
EXAMPLE 79
Other letters must be spaced because of the open appearance of the letter “L”
EXAMPLE 81
The erroneous and obsolete practice of spreading the lines over the page
Adapting this principle to display composition, Examples [81] and [82] are enlightening. Example [81] shows the manner in which some years ago display lines were erroneously distributed over the entire page, presenting in effect the faults of Example [77]. The manner of rectifying these faults is demonstrated in Example [82], where main lines are grouped at the point of balance in the upper part of the page.
The narrow measure to which these words are set necessitates letterspacing. The resulting appearance is far from satisfactory yet it enables illustrations to be grouped pleasingly and makes possible a squaring of the pages which could not be done otherwise.
EXAMPLE 78
The effect of horizontal lines is avoided by having the space between the words approximate that between the lines
EXAMPLE 80
Emphasis obtained by letterspacing, in lieu of italics and small capitals
EXAMPLE 82
The correct modern practice of grouping the lines at the point of balance
It is not always that results are as perfect as we desire them. In New England there is a printer who, in the opinion of those fortunate to have viewed his work, is producing typography classically perfect; yet this man goes from his work at the close of the day almost discouraged because of the faults that are evident to his trained eye. The artist’s ideal always eludes him and the chase seems a hopeless one, yet he continues on lest he lose sight of it altogether. It is a good sign when one recognizes imperfections; it means that he is gaining ground on success.
EXAMPLE 125
Illustrating the significance of ornamentation, as applied to a booklet. Design by the Matthews-Northrup Works, Buffalo, N. Y.
