Tipografia: matematicas del espaciado de texto

Law of Optical Volumes: The Math Behind Wired's New Logo

When
the February issue of Wired Magazine debuted with a new logo, we
explained inside the magazine that it “obeys the Law of Optical
Volumes.” We were being coy –many readers went
scurrying to Wikipedia and Google to investigate this curious law, only
to find … nothing.

Here’s the skinny: The Law of Optical Volumes is Wired
creative director Scott Dadich’s term for a typography rule that
governs the spacing of characters within a font. The theory
behind it has been evident on newsstands for years now, thanks in part
to typography guru Jonathan Hoefler, whose firm Hoefler &
Frere-Jones designed Wired’s new typefaces used throughout the
magazine.  You can also see Hoefler’s work at typography.com – or in The Wall Street Journal, Esquire and Martha Stewart Living.

And here’s a definition: The Law of Optical Volumes states
that the area between any two letters in a word must be of equal
measure throughout the word, and remain consistent throughout the body
of text.

The Law boils down to the science of kerning.
In typography jargon, kerning is the act of adjusting the space between
two letters to make words and sentences lay out more evenly. For
example in the word “VAST,” there is usually reduced space
between the V and A, and maybe extra space between the S and T.
Otherwise the “VA” would seem too far apart and the
“ST” would seem cramped.

In the font example shown below, notice how the size of the yellow
area between each pair of letters in the word “colophon” is
adjusted to be the same.