Elements of Style Process

The Elements of Style Redesign an existing book, The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White.

Objective: To combine the formal and conceptual principles of typography; to develop a typographic point-of-view; work well within conventional limitations and to progressively break those conventions meaningfully in response to the text; to refine your typographic sense of space, composition, form, counterform, and legibility; to learn the traditional parts and aspects of book design; to consider the relationship of content and page size, proportion, grid, and margins; to learn to work with multiple pages in a single, complex InDesign document.

Typeface and Layout Selection The first steps in my process were to experiment with different layouts and decide on which typefaces I would typeset my book with. I decided to grid the page out using Vilard De Honnecourts Diagram.

I enjoyed the margins it created as well as the ability to further break up the page if I needed to. My next step

was deciding between a one or two column grid. I decided on the single column grid due to its line length and simplicity.

When choosing typefaces, I tried to stray away from type I had chosen before.

I ended up choosing Palatino for the body text, and pairing it with

Futura. I used future for titling and examples and thought it paired well with Palatino.

In addition to the examples being a sans serif, I changed them to a dark blue for further emphasis.

The left shows original ideas for one and two column layouts. Below shows the revised single column layout with color and indenting.

The Comma I wanted to incorporate some sort of image into my book that could be used for my chapter opening spreads, covers, and sleeve. Because the content of the book is about writing and grammar, I started to play around with punctuation marks and how they could be used as a design element. I liked the idea of a comma, which represents a pause in a sentence, and how that pause could be represented in my chapter openings. The end result was a pattern created from commas that I was able to implement as an interesting image throughout my book.

The Laser Due to the paper I chose for my covers and sleeve, I was unable to print and achieve acceptable results. However, because the paper was two sided, I discovered that I was able to laser etch into the paper enough to cut through only the blue and reach the white. The result was similar to knocking out text, and gave the paper a tactile quality. I was able to combine this procedure and implement my commas, creating a design element in my book that I thought was successful. Because the laser cutter can also cut though the paper with precision, I was able to use it to ensure nice craft on designing the structure of my sleeve, as well as my end papers.

The next spread shows the laser and comma combo in all of its applications.

Comments on Process The thing I enjoyed most about this assignment was seeing all the steps of my process come together at the end. Because of how much I dislike the school printers print full color pages, I decided that I would buy nice paper to use as my soft cover and sleeve material. However, due to its dark blue color, I wasn’t going to be able to print on it with much success. A large part of my process was figuring out how to alternatively ‘print’ onto the paper, by instead raster etching it until the white underneath would show. This allowed me to create a system to print on my paper white also giving it a tactile element.