moving the letters closer together; the sixth bymoving the letters farther apart.1. Round next to round. (Increasing area attop and bottom where letters curve away fromeach other, as in figure 3-55A).2. Round next to slant. (Increasing area at topor bottom where letters move away from eachother, as in figure 3-55B).3. Vertical next to slant. (Increasing area attop or bottom where one letter slants away fromthe other, as in figure 3-55C).4. Slant next to slant. (Increasing area attop or bottom where letters slant in oppositedirections, as in figure 3-55D).5. Round next to vertical. (Increasing area attop and bottom where round letter curves away,as in figure 3-55E).6. Vertical next to vertical. (Decreasing areaat top and bottom where stems move together,as in figure 3-55F.)A good way to evaluate the spacing of lettersis to hold the lettering away from you and squintyour eyes, observing the gray tone throughout the45.207Figure 3-55.-Common spacing problems.lettering. If the tone appears spotty or varies toomuch, the letters are poorly spaced.WORD SPACINGProper spacing between words is an importantfactor in making them easy to read. Allow enoughspace between words and sentences to keep themfrom running together, but not so much as tocause words to be read one at a time. A goodpractice to follow is making spaces between wordsequal to the space that the letter O occupies asshown in figure 3-56. If you prefer, you can usethe letter N or a correctly spaced letter I instead.Naturally, the design of the last letter of aword and of the first letter of the following wordmust be considered in determining the amount ofspace you leave between words. You should leavea space equal to a capital O between twofull-height straight-stemmed letters, such as H andE or D and B. Of course, if one or both of theletters are curved, the space should be appropri-ately reduced. If the two letters involved arelowercase, use the lowercase o to determine thewidth of the space. If one letter is full height andthe other is lowercase height, such as the wordsbid now or on him, the space would be equal tohalf a capital O and half a lowercase o.LINE SPACINGIn addition to the spacing between letters andwords, the spacing between lines of lettering addsto the readability of the lettering. Again your eyeand your artistic ability must be your guide.Except when you are trying for a special effect,you should have enough space between the linesto make it easy for the reader to see what he isreading.The distance between lines may vary from1/2 to 1 1/2 times the height of the letter, but forthe sake of appearance, it should not be exactly45.207AFigure 3-56.-Spacing between words and lines.3-36
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