While spoken language has no audible gaps, the visual spaces introduced between words can make reading more efficient. When text and spacing are consistent, this makes it easier to read. Geoffrey Dowding describes the nature of spacing since the invention of printing from moveable type in the fifteenth century. Smooth and efficient reading required text to be closely spaced and “not en or em quadded!” The convention of having close spacing has lasted for two reasons: because it is easier to read than text which has wider spaces and because it looks better. For the first reason, adult readers take in words as units, and it would be unsuitable for “compositors, in settings not intended for young children, to break the eye’s track by introducing great gaps of white between words”. Words must flow smoothly into lines. For the second reason, the colour or “blackness” of the line looks better when it has close word-spacing, otherwise a widely-spaced line of text will appear grey. Language can also be a factor that typographers would take into consideration for word spacing. For a language like Latin, “most boundaries are marked by grammatical tags, and a smaller space is therefore sufficient”. In English, the ability to read a line easily, instead of needing to make sense of it first, is also attributed by good word spacing. Word spacing has the ability to express the meaning and idea behind a word, which typographers consider when working on design works and text. With a written piece of text, the designer has to remember to make sure they do not add too much or too little space between words; otherwise it could ruin the texture and tone.
Views Geoffrey Dowding claims that
Jan Tschichold’s rule is that “spacing should be about a middle space or the thickness of an ‘i’ in the type size used. Wide spaces should be strictly avoided.” He also claims that for Tschichold, it was better for words to be broken up in order avoid wide spacing. His other views on this issue of wide spacing include that it could depend on the typeface to determine word spacing, so long as it does not look overspaced. The perfect word space is affected by the circumstance; “at larger sizes, when letterfit is tightened, the spacing of words can be tightened as well.” Aaron Burns, a typographer, suggested that the lowercase “r” was the best size for spaces between words.
Edward Johnston, a noted calligrapher, supported that the lowercase “o” was the more appropriate size of measurement for spacing. ==See also==