Marrying Types: All in the Family

Jim Felici

Because of the ample white space in the page layouts, there’s breathing space for the contrasts in type texture to do their work, and although the color differences between the predominant typefaces are not great (Spiegelman never used Ultra Bold), modest variations in weight and point size create a clear visual roadmap of the reader. It’s apparent at a glance how all the parts of the page relate to each other. In this relaxed graphic environment, the ragged-bottom setting creates an informal rhythm that belies the strictness of the underlying page grid. Nothing here happens by whimsy, but the text never feels stiff.
The key to the success of this design, I think, is the balance between text and white space on each page, as you can see in Figure 6. When white space is squeezed out of a layout, the graphic distinction between members of a single typeface family may be insufficient, and the page can go gray. The signposts that clarify the structure of the page become less distinct. In such crowded environs, contrasting type from another family—a sans serif, in particular—may save the day.
Figure 6. Designers don’t always have the freedom to luxuriate in so much white space, but the openness of a page like this—a sidebar—places the type on a pedestal where it can be both admired and easily and pleasurably read. Click the image below to see a larger version.

Sidenote: At this time, Macworld‘s type was set on IBM PCs, using hand-coded WordStar files as a front end for a CCI minicomputer-driven offsite typesetting system. All the type was set in galley format and pasted up by hand. Macworld wasn’t set on a Mac until at least a year after another sister publication (the now-defunct Publish!) pioneered Mac-based page layout for high-resolution output in 1986.
Today, it’s unusual to see entire advertisements, much less entire magazines, set in a single typeface family—neither Macworld nor PCWorld do it anymore—even though families were created about 100 years ago just for this purpose. Although we’ve moved past the three-ring typographic circuses of the recent past, the use of highly contrasting typefaces has become almost de rigueur. It’s usually perfectly justified—it’s what we’re accustomed to seeing, in fact—but often it’s simply a shortcut to visual dynamism, a gimmick, that may not be in the best interests of the text.
 

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