Typophile

Rules of Letterspacing

Dan Gayle

I recently saw the logo for a new condo going up in Seattle, and given that I was standing 3 feet away from it, I couldn’t read it. When I stepped back a bit, I glimpsed this little fellow:

The letterspacing is hugemungously wide, too the point that I couldn’t read it on the fence I was walking by. (Interesting name, considering the topic though...)

Is there any kind of rule, other than the Mach 1 Eyeball, for how wide is too wide? I mean, seriously, an EM space is too much.

What do you think?

‹ To superscript or not to superscript Alternative to Georgia ›
Tiffany Wardle

Not that you are wrong. This is quite wide, but it depends upon whom they really want to be able to read it. For someone driving by, at a distance, this wouldn’t appear near as wide as it did to you.

(edit: I said “aren’t”, but I meant “are”.)

Dan Gayle

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