"Why the sheep?"
A frequently asked question, with a characteristically wacky answer.
The printing trade is a curious business, with a wonderful language all its own. For example, imperfections on a printed page where a speck of dust has lodged on the litho plate, preventing the ink making contact, are known as "hickies". Not so long ago, type sizes were known by such picturesque names as long primer, pearl, minion, double paragon and so on.
At the time of starting Em En Designs, my initials were M.N. Given that certain typographic measurements are referred to as ems (the width of a capital letter M) and ens (half that), the choice of name was clear. As for the sheep, in the noisy atmosphere of an old-style composing room, it was inevitable that ems and ens would become "muttons" and "nuts"!
These days, however, ems and ens have come back into their own in the elegant construction of websites which meet not only the standards for W3 accessibility compliance, but also have an intuitive feel across different browsers. We don't mention IE, but if you're interested in such matters, have a look at our links page, which will show you some alternative browsers.
