Changing Type Horizontally You can also adjust the
horizontal spacing between letters. This adjustment is called track-
ing. Tracking enables you to squeeze copy to fit it into a single line or
to stretch it out to cover a large area. Be sure to exercise caution, how-
ever. Even slight changes in tracking can affect the type’s readability.
Take this example of normal tracking, with no extra spacing between
characters:
Grandmother of eight makes hole in one
Here is the same example with loose tracking:
Grandmother of eight makes hole in one
The following has tight tracking:
Grandmother of eight makes hole in one
Note that the example of normal tracking is easiest to read.(^358) PRODUCING THE NEWS
tracking
adjusting the horizontal space
between letters
ou have maybe two
seconds for someone
to see something that
catches her eye and pick up
the magazine.” That’s the chal-
lenge Dennis Ortiz-Lopez and
other professional typographers
face when they design special
lettering for a magazine cover.
Ortiz-Lopez has created spe-
cial cover letters (often called
logotypes) for many popular
magazines, including Parade,
Premiere, Rolling Stone, Spy,
Self, Texas Monthly and US.
Most of his lettering styles
are specially adapted for one-
time use on a cover. As such,
they are typically condensed
and tightly kerned, although
some can be adapted for use
as a copy style inside the
magazine. Trained at Compton
College and California State–
Long Beach, Ortiz-Lopez left
school early and joined Gould
& Associates as a designer.
In 1979, Rolling Stone hired
him on staff for hand let-
tering. Two years later, he
switched to full-time freelance
work, specializing in maga-
zine logos and custom fonts.
Ortiz-Lopez regards type
as “an ornamented glyph that
makes a thought into a graphic
that other people can translate
into a thought.” He says he
favors serif fonts and hates any
gimmick that draws attention
to the type itself rather than to
the words. “Words on a page
should flow smoothly into the
mind of the reader, not stutter
as barely decipherable knots
passing for letters,” he said.
Many of the older, elegant
typefaces that fell out of use
in the 1970s and 1980s have
come in for some retooling.
Ortiz-Lopez has been produc-
ing computerized versions of
these faces and then licens-
ing them for sale. Rather than
scanning and tracing the old
characters, he often redraws
the entire alphabet from
scratch. In the process, he cor-
rects type problems that have
stymied other designers.
As a career-long perfection-
ist, Ortiz-Lopez has come to
appreciate the precision of
computerized design tools.
But he also worries about the
unprecedented typographic
control they put in the hands of
art directors. Ortiz-Lopez says
he flinches when he sees type
taboos broken or his own fonts
handled in ways he never imag-
ined. These are, he notes, “the
best of times and the worst of
times for type fanatics like me.”
Source: Adapted from “Dennis Ortiz-Lopez,”
Aldus Magazine, March/April, p. 28.
Portrait of a Young Journalist
Dennis Ortiz-Lopez, Type Designer
Y
"