The Quiet Craft

The Quiet Craft Four short chapters on setting text H. MARQUARDT

One · The line is the unit Nobody reads a letter. Nobody really reads a word. The eye takes a line at a time, in jumps, and everything else in typesetting is in service of that jump. This is why line length matters more than typeface. Sixty-six characters is the number that gets repeated, and like most repeated numbers it is a range wearing a disguise: anywhere from about fifty to about seventy-five will do, and the right end of that range depends on how much leading you give it. A long line with tight leading is the worst combination in print, because the eye returning to the left margin has nothing to aim at and lands a line early. You have read that sentence twice before, in some book, and blamed yourself. The Quiet Craft · 1

Two · Space is not empty Beginners add ornament. The trade adds space, and then takes some of it away. The space between paragraphs, the space around a heading, the space inside the margin: these do the work that a novice expects a rule or a box to do. A heading needs no line under it if it has enough air above it. A pull quote needs no border if the text steps back. The test is simple and unkind. Squint at the page until the words blur. What is left is the structure, and if it does not read as structure while blurred, it will not read as structure in focus either. The Quiet Craft · 2

Three · Against the ransom note Two typefaces is a decision. Three is usually an accident that has been rationalised. One family with a good range of weights will carry a book, a report, and most magazines. If you want contrast, take it from size and weight before you take it from a second face — those are free, and they will not fight each other. When you do pair two faces, make them disagree clearly. A serif and a sans with similar proportions look like a mistake; a sturdy slab against a light humanist sans looks like a choice. The Quiet Craft · 3

Four · Finish the job Most of the difference between competent and good typesetting is in the last half hour, and it is all tidying. Hunt the widows and the orphans. Kill the hyphen stacks. Look for the rivers of white that open up in justified text and close them by rewriting, not by tracking. Check that no heading sits alone at the foot of a page. None of this will be noticed by a reader, which is the point. The compliment typesetting is aiming at is not 'how beautiful' but nothing at all — an hour passing without the reader once looking up to wonder why their eye is tired. The Quiet Craft · 4

Colophon Set in the fonts that came with the machine, which is the oldest joke in the trade and also the honest answer. Written in four sittings, edited in one, and shortened twice. Published as a PDF, which is a format nobody loves and everybody opens. If you want to read further Anything by a working compositor, pre-1970 Written by people who had to justify a line by hand and had opinions about it. A specimen book, any foundry Better than a theory book. You learn a face by reading a page of it, not a paragraph about it. Your own work from two years ago The cheapest critic available, and the only one who knows what you meant. First edition. Corrections to the address on the title page, gratefully.