Tuesday, April 24, 2007

on opportunities unwasted (confessions of an editorial intern)

I’ve been reminiscing a lot about the internship I had last spring, at Zondervan. It was the chance I dreamed about as an underclassman: a gorgeous section in my résumé, the perfect bridge between the life of a student and the life of an editor.

And then, you know the story. Some time in February, I discovered that I’d gotten my vocational message upside-down, and I wasn’t supposed to edit, but to write. This wasn’t because the internship was bad. It was, in fact, quite the opposite: one of the best things I did at Calvin. I still finished the internship, learning all I could from the inside of a major publishing house. (How could that hurt a hopeful writer?)

Surprisingly for me, my favorite lessons were on typography and fonts. My supervisor showed me coffeetable-sized books on fonts and the people who designed them. I loved the rough sketches of individual letters on graph paper. Can you imagine devoting days to a perfect, scripted G? Instead of designing bridges, these engineers made letters.

So now, like a tourist admiring architecture, I seek more information on fonts. When I finish a book, I wander past the end of the text, past the author’s notes, and look for the little paragraph on the font or design scheme. Some books have one, and some don’t, but I love discovering what font was used and the name of its creator.

I startled myself the other day, coming across a passage in italics and thinking “Is that Garamond? I bet that’s Garamond.” Sure enough, a tiny note, near the front this time: “Set in 9.75/12pt Monotype Garamond…” I slammed the book shut, feeling a little guilty and a little smug. Who cares about things like type? I asked myself, flipping back to my place in the story. But a moment later, another thought: “I was right. It was Garamond…”

I also check—almost unconsciously—for ligatures, those funny things that look like two letters smashed together. “Ć” is one of the strangest and most recognizable, but my supervisor introduced me to fi and fl, instead of fi and fl. The difference is a slim one, but it’s like tucking in your shirt—it just makes everything look tidier. How sad is it, really, that I squint at each book I read now, searching for words that begin with F-I or F-L to see if the typesetter used ligatures? Do I really need to sacrifice my eyesight, at 22, to such a foolish pursuit?

(Don’t start doing this. It may creep on you slowly—you’ll pull the book closer to you, narrowing your eyes at the word fishmonger or flaxen, and you’ll see how perfectly the F connects with the I or L. “Ha! A ligature!” you’ll shout, feeling terribly pleased. No one else will know what you’re talking about, but you’ll be hooked. Drop me a line—I’ll understand.)

Another cheesy fascination? (As if ligatures weren’t bad enough…) I look at the margins, for heaven’s sake. The margins of a book! Smiling at the broad ones, frowning over narrow ones. A tip for spotting a well-proportioned book? The amount of white margin space on the edge of a page should take about the same amount of space as the text. Sounds impossible, but imagine cutting the margins out and placing those strips over the text. If it balances, then the book’s designer remembered that our thumbs have to go somewhere when we read… and it’s so much nicer if they don’t cover the words.

There you have it. Three tiny things I learned last year that daily impact the way I read! The list goes on—I’m touchy about “that” and “which”—but it also gets more mundane. (Did you think it possible?)

*Note: My pneumonia is gone, and good riddance. I’m slowly getting my stamina back up. If you start feeling a bit winded and have a sore throat, drop everything! Put your feet up! Take Vitamin C!!—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 04/24 at 06:52 PM
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