Spacing – 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.

Notes

Spacing is the fourth booklet in the series on type and paper Carl Dair produced for The E. B. Eddy Company. It had been six years since Type Talks, the last booklet he produced for E. B. Eddy. During that time he had moved to Toronto and built a new house with a detached studio just north of the city. He was doing a great deal of work for the prestigious Toronto typesetting firm Cooper & Beatty and his book Design with Type had recently been published. This booklet is an expansion of ‘it happens in space’ one of the chapters in that book.

Artifact Text

“By way of introduction … This is the story of the metal the printer uses which is not type-high … the metal that makes no impression on the paper but which everyone sees. This is the story of the spaces … the leads and slugs … the mut quads and the nut quads … the reglet and furniture without which no printing form is ready for the press. This is the story of spacing. It is the logical sequel to the series we have published on type and design, for good typography and fine design consist not only in the knowledge of type and its arrangement … but when, and how much, space should enter into the composition. We are happy to make this contribution to the printing industry since perhaps space concerns us most … for space in the type form is where the paper shows on the finished job … and papermaking is our business. THE E. B. EDDY COMPANY

Items in this Series

Type & Paper – E. B. Eddy Paper Company, Carl Dair, 1946

Two-colour, 16 pp. saddle stitched booklet

Design for Printing – E. B. Eddy Paper Company, Carl Dair, 1947

Two-colour booklet, 18 pp (including inside covers)

Type Talks – E. B. Eddy Paper Company, Carl Dair, 1948

Two-colour booklet, 24 pp