This was really interesting to me, as I had never thought about spaces between words and letters as having any effect on how I read a piece. After all, there's nothing in the spaces to motivate me into thinking of anything-- or so I thought. But after we talked about all the different aspects to a book besides just the content (grids, font, spaces, margins, etc), I realized that there was a lot going on in a book than just a story. The work now that I see going into each and every book and how it presents itself is amazing.
Consider this, by reading my blog post right now, are the spaces between my words making you feel anything? It's maybe a weird question, to imply that something like that can cause an emotional response. H o w a b o u t n o w ? D o t h e s e s p a c e s m a k e y o u f e e l d i f f e r e n t l y t h a n t h e l a s t s e n t e n c e ?
They make me view the text differently, like maybe the author is trying to emphasize a piece, expand a thought, or even thinks the reader is stupid and needs to "speak" slowly.
Whatifthespaceswereleftoutalltogether?
So the spaces between letters and words help the reader process the content-- even the margins in books help frame and guide the eye down the page.
But people didn't always use spaces and margins in the same way. I think that in today's society we have a 'luxury' of being able to use spaces. Back when monks hand-wrote books in scriptoriums they couldn't use extra spaces for style. Even marking paragraphs aren't evident, as ink and vellum are too precious to waste not using.
Do you (the reader) consider spacing to be a luxury? Do you notice the spacing, and does it help you at all?
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