I bought the domain spacematic.net in 2003 with the intention to showcase all of my creative endeavors: short stories, art, music, or sites I designed for others. Back then, I was just getting my feet wet as a freelance web designer, and having a presence on the internet seemed an obvious prerequisite if you wanted people to trust you with their website.

That’s cool, but what’s with the name?

Glad you asked! The name spacematic dates to a time before graphic designers relied on computers. Prior to the advent of desktop publishing, designers had to hunch over drafting boards with t-squares and rulers, laboriously laying down dry transfer lettering onto poster board or some other substrate. The most common variety of such lettering was branded Letraset.

Letraset was the go-to method of getting a nice, consistent typeface onto a page. Even spacing of the letters was facilitated by their SPACEMATIC method of “automatic” spacing/kerning. The SPACEMATIC name was included at the bottom of every Letraset sheet – and yes – it was capable of being transferred, same as the letter sets themselves.

As you can see in the lower left corner of the example sheet (above), SPACEMATIC was proudly displayed beside the Letraset brand name. The cool thing about a word like “spacematic” is that it’s quite vague when taken out of context. It can represent any number of entities or concepts. This vagueness was embraced by bootleg album cover artists. The presence of a company name added an air of legitimacy to an otherwise illicit product, which could cause legal trouble for sellers and purchasers alike if the US Postmaster General or Interpol intercepted a copy in transit.

And thus, the phantom record label SPACEMATIC was born. It was in the spirit of this community of artists and music lovers that I appropriated the name for my own domain. Consider it a tongue-in-cheek underground reference for those who are in the know. To everyone else, it’s innocuous enough not to generate a second thought.

So now you know the story of the SPACEMATIC name. Go forth, and do what you will with this nugget of wisdom.