Beginning in the (early) 1800s, the Fann Street foundry in London produced a few designs in the brand new genre of “fatfaces.” They were intended for short words to be printed HUGE, and for this purpose, they worked quite well! In the 1970s, everything old was new again, but this time the exaggerated proportions of the era infected the x-heights of many well-trodden styles. Weight was pushed to new extremes. Negative space in and around letters shrank to minuscule specs of white.
A great deal of type design revolves around making positive space consistent—for instance making sure all your verticals are exactly 90 units wide. But as type gets into the bold, black, and ultra weights, it becomes more necessary to make sure that your negative spaces are as consistent as possible. This allows an even texture where no one letter or pocket of whitespace stands out more than any other.
