One standard I’ve seen advocated is the width of the ’i’ in the font. The Microsoft Charater standards give 1/4 em as a standard, with more or less (as little as 1/5 to as much as 1/3 em) depending whether the characters in the font are wide or narrow.
My own conclusion is that a reasonable approach is to start with the word space as either the advance width of the lower case i or 1/4 em, and then proof your font with somewhat greater and smaller values and to see what you think works best. You can vary the word space in InDesign or Quark, so it is not that troublesome to proof.
I have been know to “reset” the space character for a number of fonts. Older composition systems did not have the spaceband as a character of the font, so this is common practice for a compositor.
If you have InDesign for example, copy in a page of text, and set it ragged right with your font. Change the percentage value for the ideal wordspace up or down until the text looks right, then multiply that percentage times the value you started with, and you have a proper spaceband value — At least, one that fits your eye and for text sizes.
Harder in a display font; the “ideal” spaceband value will vary with the setting size — as a percentage, almost always smaller as the type gets bigger.
Paul — it is hard to do a search on this forum. I’ve tried the advance search function, but can’t figure out how to get the “and” rather than the “or.”
Who's Online:
There are currently 13 users and 92 guests online.
User login
New to Typophile? Accounts are free, and easy to set up.
20.Oct.2007 12.41pm
do a search, it’s been discussed before. i’d do it for you, but don’t feel like it tonite.
20.Oct.2007 1.21pm
One standard I’ve seen advocated is the width of the ’i’ in the font. The Microsoft Charater standards give 1/4 em as a standard, with more or less (as little as 1/5 to as much as 1/3 em) depending whether the characters in the font are wide or narrow.
My own conclusion is that a reasonable approach is to start with the word space as either the advance width of the lower case i or 1/4 em, and then proof your font with somewhat greater and smaller values and to see what you think works best. You can vary the word space in InDesign or Quark, so it is not that troublesome to proof.
20.Oct.2007 3.13pm
Wiki... http://typophile.com/node/32243?
20.Oct.2007 3.52pm
... either the advance width of the lower case i or 1/4 em, and then proof your font ...
I think the former is more important as a starting point. The em doesn’t know anything about a typeface’s width, the i does.
20.Oct.2007 4.05pm
Rachel,
I have been know to “reset” the space character for a number of fonts. Older composition systems did not have the spaceband as a character of the font, so this is common practice for a compositor.
If you have InDesign for example, copy in a page of text, and set it ragged right with your font. Change the percentage value for the ideal wordspace up or down until the text looks right, then multiply that percentage times the value you started with, and you have a proper spaceband value — At least, one that fits your eye and for text sizes.
Harder in a display font; the “ideal” spaceband value will vary with the setting size — as a percentage, almost always smaller as the type gets bigger.
Paul — it is hard to do a search on this forum. I’ve tried the advance search function, but can’t figure out how to get the “and” rather than the “or.”