I would like to give a simple gift to those who publish periodicals and books on a shoestring. It is a gift that some larger publishers could make good use of as well. This marvelous giftie may not only save you money, but it will also greatly improve your presentation. What a deal!

Whenever I send an email or write a business letter, I write short “block paragraphs.” Block paragraphs are not indented but are separated from each other by empty lines, as you see in this blog post.

I limit the contents of each block to only a sentence or two in order to assert particulars with the aggressiveness of a bullet-point list. I am trying to keep each thought simple and discrete in order to help a racing or distracted reader to skim effectively. Block paragraphs are useful for writing destined for the speed reader: online text, advertising and some periodicals.

On the printed page, however, where ideas and stories are presented to readers who are not expected to run off at any moment, flow and cohesion are the goal of typography. Empty lines between related paragraphs become disruptive and even confusing. Empty lines should be reserved for separating sections within chapters, essays or stories where there is a marked change of subject or scene.

Books and essays with prose and poetic extracts (long quoted passages set off from the main text by spacing or other typographical variation) will be especially aided by removing empty lines within the main text and indenting paragraphs instead. The main text will then hold together and allow the clearer distinction of the quoted poetry and prose. (By the way, short quotes need only be identified with quotation marks and remain integrated with the main text. Substantial extracts, however, are set off in a block separated from the main text and do not need quotation marks.)

Think also of how much clearer the elements of a haibun become when the prose paragraphs with in it are a united block. When the haibun’s prose is interrupted by the same empty lines that may separate the prose from the haiku, the effect is choppy and can be confusing. This is especially true when multiple pieces are on the same page. Let what belongs together hang together!

In written forms other than in emails, business letters and advertising, a paragraph is meant to unite, in a cohesive group, a number of sentences that flow together to express an idea. Unfortunately the email/advertising habit has infected essays, short stories, and even whole books. Text that belongs together in a single paragraph is all too often broken down into blocks of a sentence or two. Subjects that belong together in a flow of connected paragraphs are vivisected into disparate parts floating in a pool of empty lines.

Most publications contain some prose. Even poetry journals and books contain prefaces, forewords, essays, letters to the editor … and haibun. In some publications, whole pages of space will be saved simply by a more generous concept of paragraphing, and by removing all those extraneous and disruptive empty lines separating every paragraph. A modest indent will do the job much more elegantly. Enjoy the economy of space and the flow of ideas!

“Typography Tips for Poets,” a column in Moonset Literary Review, was written by
Diane Katz, book designer, Rosenberry Books

Diane can be reached at 800.723.0336 diane@rosenberrybooks.com

“The typographer must analyze and reveal the inner order of the text, as a musician must reveal the inner order of the music he performs … The typographic performance must reveal … the inner composition. Typographers, like other artists and craftsmen—musicians, composers and authors as well — must as a rule do their work and disappear.”
— The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

Writers of haiku, tanka, senryu, etc. care about the little things, this much I know. In each poem, your canvas is so small that every little element is significant.

Correspondingly, when short forms come to print, every little design element — page shape and margins; poem arrangement and justification; font selection, size, letterfit and leading; the design of folios, running heads and footers (to throw some terms at you) — can assist, or serve to ruin what you have so carefully created.

I want to see your poetry better served. That is the purpose of my design work at Rosenberry Books and that is the purpose of this new column about typography. A word of warning that I know you will understand: tips do not an artist make. Yet I am a devoted do-it-myselfer, and I like tips for becoming a better novice.

With internet use and texting, everyone is typing. Without thinking about it, self-publishers and self-styled typographers of newspapers, magazines and books are bringing into print modes that work well on computers and cell-phones. In print however, many such techniques interfere with the functional and aesthetic experience of reading.

Why do we care about typography — what is it for? Let’s start with the obvious — readability. Readability is not the same thing as legibility. Unlike the handwriting of many members of my family, most all the fonts that came with your computer can be read at some size. Readability takes legibility to the next level: can you read the text comfortably and effortlessly?

Reading legible paragraphs of capitalized letters is difficult. Besides the feeling of being shouted at, the familiar shape of words (by which we efficiently read) is lost. Likewise, a big font with little space between lines (leading) can be as difficult to read as a squintingly small font.

Selecting a font style and size (considering weight, x-height, ascender and descender length …) that is in proper relation to the leading, which is also in proper relation to the column width, is a good start towards readability. The best thing to do with this bit of information is to start noticing this issue whenever you are reading.

Short lines of all caps, such as in titles, can be readable and appropriate. Why not, then, use all caps in a short poem?

A title is like an announcement. Think of the pace and tone of voice that is typical of a spoken announcement. Is that the quality desired for the reading of a haiku? But I am getting ahead of myself. “Expression” will be a fine subject for a future column …

“Typography Tips for Poets,” a column in Moonset Literary Review, was written by
Diane Katz, book designer, Rosenberry Books

Diane can be reached at 800.723.0336 diane@rosenberrybooks.com

“A package of oatmeal all in black with typography redolent of a nineteenth-century circus poster might be a splendid piece of graphic design but would most likely confuse someone just looking for breakfast.”
— On Book Design by Richard Hendel

Thank you Richard Hendel for a perfect introduction to the subject of this column: typographical “expression.”

Once upon at time, Dave Russo of the North Carolina Haiku Society showed me a small stack of books from his haiku collection. He hoped to stimulate discussion about how we might design Beneath the Willow Tree, an NCHS anthology. I opened one volume and immediately queried, “Is this a children’s book?”

It was not. It was a book of haiku and photographs for adults. The typography and layout, however, followed common children’s book design: on every spread a short text in a very large point size was opposite an illustration.

As I read, it took some effort on my part to resist the context and to appropriately “hear” the haiku. The moral of this story is contained in the quote above: if you want to inspire appetite, don’t design an oatmeal box that conjures the smell of elephants and greasepaint.

We live in a world of loud, dynamic and varied advertising. Can we pull back from this flashy world to notice how astonishingly subtle things affect us, whether we notice consciously or not?

Can we pull back from this over-stimulating world to read a haiku? Haiku poets, as they write, often make a special effort to get themselves out of the way in order to create poems without obstacles to the reader’s own experience. Typography and book design should be handled with the same sensitivity.

Our computers provide us with a baffling array of typographical choices. But something so simple as selection of bold or italicized fonts can have huge effects.

Here is another story. Somewhere I saw an anthology of haiku. The editors had the problem of identifying the author of each haiku. They chose to follow each poem closely with the author’s name, and in order to separate the name from the body of the poem, the author’s name was in bold. Typographically speaking, this amounted to shouting the author’s name. It emphasized the name. The name became more important than the poem.

To me, this design said that the editors encouraged readers to skim for the names of authors they knew. And for me, with the poet’s name shouting beneath each poem, I had a difficult time reading each haiku in peace. I know, I know, I’m just too sensitive. (But I know you are sensitive too, or you wouldn’t be writing all those marvelously tiny poems!)

With this column, I hope I am sending you back out in the world with something new to observe as you journey through books and publications — how does typographical expression assist or interfere with each reading experience?

“Typography Tips for Poets,” a column in Moonset Literary Review, was written by
Diane Katz, book designer, Rosenberry Books

Diane can be reached at 800.723.0336 diane@rosenberrybooks.com