The Shape of Words Not only does each letter ofa word have a shape ofits own, bu all is letters taken together give shape tothe word. We are of couse referring to printed, or at last writen, words; far the words we hes in speech or on theradiodonothavea visual form. They have what might be called sonic forrnbut wwe are not dealing with this atthe moment. When you read the word MAMMA you see at once that it has quite a dif ferent shape from the word OnOLO. The lines (straight or curved, upright or at an angle) and the blank spacesberween one letier and the next all contribute co giving che word ies overall shape LEELA ET MW MNMAWVWNAPoems and Telegrams Te is cemainly quite wrong to ead 2 poem ina hurry, a fie ‘were a telegram. Though some contemporary poems doin fact have as few words as the average telegram, fs in many cases different. Isay ‘in many cass’ because one docs sometimes get telegrams that might almost be poems, and these one reads through quickly at first and then more slowly realizing that some ofthe words can have more than fone meaning, as in a poem. They are poems stuck off at random, And Iwill go further and saythateachtext, however shor, ha ts own ‘reading time’, Apoemonly communicates if read slowly: only then does it have time to create astate of mind in which the images can form and be transformed, ‘The graphic designer can also operate in this Geld where levterng and spacing must be caleulated according to the cffec required. Though itis commonly done, iis notright to use the same type faces for poems as for the reports of Board meetings. For rapid reading the type must be simple and clea, the spaces between lewersand words exactly caleu lated, the space around each word suficent to isolate it ‘completely from is surroundings; while theletters and back {ground must aot be done in complementary colours, Quick legibly isthe quality required most ofall fr road- signs, yet on most of the signs we see the words have com: pletely lost their shape. For example, the word HULL is shorter than the word LIVERPOOL, but we often see it drawn outto # UL 1,40 28 to make itall of alengeh with LIVERPOOL In this way our reading has been slowed down and the message retarded in the interes of 2 quite bogus aesthetic standard, ‘When ve are siting in an armchair reading a good book we need co slow down our reading speed, and 2 number of writers and artists ave realized tis need. One of the effects of the tral lack of punctuation in the lst chapter of Joyce's ‘Uiyseis chat it changes our reading speed. Klee once wrote 4 poem and filled the spaces berweem the lecters with various colours. The result was thatthe wordsrevealed¢hemselvest0 the consciousness in slow motion. The Futurists composed their sacle paralibee according to thispriniple, while poems have also been written with one word on each page. The reading time of posters is often varied by the use ofleveering 69This is especially the case with words we arcused rosea ing — 0 forced to read —every day :the names of newspapers, of big firms, foreign countries, film stars, the names dinned inco us by assiduous advertisers, words that greetus wherever ‘we look, such as ‘sport’, and the ‘in’ words ofthe moment, such as ‘pop’, These we seize ata ghince, without having to spell out each leer or syllable. That is, we recognize their overall shape, a thing we cannot do with unfamiliar words such as texradecapodous or txyanlyonnonodont, especially when these are writen inthe tiniest print on a minate scrap of paper rolled round a medicine bottle, for example, Some words, such asthe names of wellknown firms or products, ae so familiar to us tha if weblock out mostofthe Testers we can tll ead the name corretly at frst glanceand The Shape of Words 6 only notice afterwards that something slightly unusual. But this can only happen if we preserve the general shape ofthe word. ‘An experiment anyone can make isto cu ourthelettersof a newspaper ttle, for example, and push theseclosertogether until the upright stroke of one letter also does duty forthe next, This gives «clearer idea of the shape of the word, One can go even further, andsuperimpose one letteron another, as in one of my illustrations I have made an M do duty aso as an nin the word DAM«oO (the trademark of anancieat Roman brick factory) Kaovledge of the shape of words and the possibilities these offer for communication can be very usefal to che graphic designer when he comes to make warning sigas that have tobe taken in quickly, ike the ones on motorways, that ‘one cannot stop to decipher