Designers do a double take with the letters on the tombstone of Pope Franciscus

The regulations for the funeral of Pope Francis were meticulous and the ceremony attracted a global audience. But it is the setup of the letters on his tombstone who now attract attention.

The simple plate has only 10 letters, but the distance between them can let it read as “Fra Ncisc vs.”

Of course the letters are intended to be read as Francis, the derivative of the name of the pope in Latin. (V stood for both you and V in Latin.)

Pope Francis marble Tomb reflects his simple style and fulfills his desire for an unadorned final resting place. In that sense, the Tombstone lettering in Times Roman, an active font used on a large scale in the English language, can be considered appropriate.

But for those who are obsessed with Kerning, the space between letters, the view from above the grave is not exactly an aesthetic pleasant.

“Woe to the person who decided to do it as they did, just because it is a bad decision that will take a long time, unless they change it,” Charles Nix, the Senior Executive Creative Director at MonotypeOne of the world’s largest font and technology companies.

In typography, Mr Nix said, there is a general distance, which is the overall space between letters within a font. Kerning, however, is the space between letters or characters.

He said that, in addition to designing the actual letter, typographers design the space around each letter.

“We spend a lot of time, especially late in the design process, and ensure that we have a harmonious distance,” said Mr Nix.

“But even after you have received the distance as well as possible, you still get with couples letters, such as capital A and a capital T, which ultimately have a lot of room between them,” he added. “So we make special core pairs and program them in the font.”

The double take for some when they look at the letters on the tombstone, is caused by the lack of core between couples letters.

So what happened in the Vatican?

“It may be laid out as individual letters and not actually typed,” said Mr. Nix. “So it may not have been a font that the template has made for it. It may have been that individual letters were used on which pattern were used, perhaps used, and they were mathematically distributed in contrast to visual.”

For centuries people have tried to find a mathematical way to engrave letters, he said, and it always fails.

A representative of the Vatican could not be immediately reached for comments about the letters.

A lack of core is common in serious markers, Mr Nix said, especially those from the 20th century because they are produced very mathematically. That method is much less expensive and can accommodate much more text, he said.

An editor at Fast Company, a magazine about company, technology and design, was one of the first notification The disagreement.

Other more informal observers immediately pointed to the “A” in Francis that is independent of the other letters.

“Why does it look like pressure on the letter ‘A’ will open a secret room where the ark of the covenant is stored?” sought -after Elle CordovaA digital maker, comic writer and grammar.

“It seems that they have downloaded a bootleged version of Times Roman without any core data embedded in the file, brought it into a number of old software, such as Adobe Scribe 1517 AD, and then leaving the software the letters space,” she said. “And this is what you get: a horror to design.”

Paul Shaw, a type and design historian, was just as disappointed and said that the bad distance was predictable because “ran” and “CVS” letters (RA and V) need that historically adjustment by hand.

“The name of Pope Franciscus was just eliminated by someone who operates a stone machine, probably via sandbugs from a template prepared on a computer,” he said.

“It is depressing, but not surprising,” he added. “Someone should have been hired to cut the name by hand.”