If you practice typography without having at least had a taste of type design, the understanding of the hierarchy of white space ends at the choice of typeface. So, the tracking depends on the counter-space. The word space depends on the tracking, and the linespace depends on the word space.

So there is an inverse hierarchy where the smallest object on the page dictates the rest of the typographic parameters. If you’re a typographer and all you do is buy a font and then make typography with you, you’re lacking that first step; The space between characters is determined by the space inside the characters

As a typographer, you can add tracking or you can kern stuff, but you cannot shape what’s inside a character. As a type designer, you can look at the counter inside the lower case ‹b› and shape it and then you look at the counter in the lower case ‹n› and you shape it and you look at the ‹b› and the ‹n› and you make them work together. That’s like getting into the molecules of type.

Hannes F. Famira.