If you are reading this in the physical newspaper, you are reading lines of the Expresso typeface, of equal length but with unequal spacing between words. There is a compromise between elegance and economy. Eric Gill might or might not have approved. Gill was a sculptor and a typeface designer of such typefaces as the enduring Gill Sans and the elegant Joanna face that he used in the book. In this treatise, first published in 1931, he describes in detail the artistry of the typographer – on one page he shows 29 examples of the letter "A". But the essay is primarily a rant about the mechanisation of society, a process leaving the craftsman (printer, bookbinder or typographical designer) in danger of losing his "holy" craft and becoming a mere machine minder. Idiosyncratic and cranky, Gill's thinking on the subject paves the way for works, such as the excellent recent Helvetica documentary, that open our eyes to the role of typography in how we read and how we see.
