A page, like a building or a room, can be of any size and proportion, but some are distinctly more pleasing than others, and some have quite specific connotations. A brochure that unfolds and refolds in the hand is intrinsically different from a formal letter that lies motionless and flat, or a handwritten note that folds into quarters and comes in an envelope of a different shape and size. All of these are different again from a book, in which pages flow sequentially in pairs. In a craft like typography, no matter how perfectly honed one’s instances are, it is useful to be able to calculate answers exactly. History, natural science, geometry and mathematics are all relevant to typography in this regard - and can all be counted on for aid within the realm of design.
Sizing and spacing type, like composing and performing music or applying paint to a canvas, is largely concerned with intervals and differences. As variation builds, imprecise relationships and very small discrepancies are easily perceived. However, establishing overall dimensions of a page is more a matter of limits and sums. In this realm, it is usually sufficient, and often it is better, if structural harmony is not so much enforced. The page is a piece of paper. It is also visible and tangible proportion, silently sounding thouroughbass of the book. On it lies the textblock, which must answer to the page. The two together - page and textblock - produce a responsive relationship through geometry. This factor alone can bond the reader to the book. Shaping the page, like all other forms of design, is first and foremost about aesthetics.
Margins Satellites and the textblock
White space that is so good it will get you laid. The textblock effects the way in which the reader interacts with the information provided. If the text is meant to invite continous reading, it is set in columns that are clearly taller than wide. This is because in alphabetic writing horizontal motion predominates. The tall column of type is a symbol of fluency, whereas long and narrow colomns (like in newspapers and magazines) suggest disposable prose and quick, unthoughtful reading. Adding width not only gives the text more presence; it implies that it might be worth savoring. Also, creating a textblock that is asymetrical compared to the actual page gives the reader navigational ques on how the text should be approached. In typography, margins must do three things. They must lock the textblock to the page and lock the facing pages to each other through the force of their proportions. Second, they must frame the text block in a manner that suits its design. Third, they must protect the text block, leaving it easy for the reader to see and convienent to handle. Hanging numbers, outdented paragraphs or heads, marginal bullets, page numbers, running heads, and marginal notes all constitute as typographic satellites. Because these elements can be rather unpredictable, the boundaries of a textblock are rarely absolute. If these features do occur though, they should be designed to give validity to the page and further bind the page and textblock.
Improvisations and Adjustments
If you have control issues, don’t become a typographer.
The Golden Section
Scribes and typographers, like architects, have been shaping visual spaces for thousands of years. Certain proportions keep recurring in their work because they please the eye and the mind, just as certain sizes keep recurring because they are comfortable to the hand. Many of these proportions are inherent in simple geometric figures – equilateral triangle, square, regular pentagon, hexagon, and octagon. These proportions not only seem to please human beings in many different centuries and countries, they are also prominent in nature far beyond the human realm. They occur in the structures of molecules, mineral crystals, plants, and animals.
Careful measurement and accurate calculation are indeed important in typography, but they are not its final purpose. Moments arise in every project when approximation is necessary. Typographers build perfectly proportioned pages, then distort them on demand. The text takes precedence over the purity of the design, and the typographic texture of the text takes precedence over the absolute proprotions of the individual page.
Using mathetmatical purities to satiate your typographics OCD. The golden section is a symmetrical relation built from asymetrical parts. Two numbers, shapes, or elements embody the golden section when the smaller is to the larger as the larger is to the sum. That being: a : b = b : (a + b). This equation can be applied to creating the layout of a page, along with creating a system of mathematically perfect font sizes. While this system gives the impression of prescision, it does vary depending on page size, textblock size, and typeface. Incorporating this unit of measurement in all of these elements on a page can prove to be difficult.
The rigidity of a layout will vary depending on the type of document that is being designed. There is more room for errors to occur when working with a larger document such as a book, and thus the laout design should be flexible enough to incorporate effective solutions. There are solutions to design issues that still allow for a sense of unity though. For example, if three lines remain at the end of a chapter in a book, there are a few ways to go about fixing it depnding on the elements and proportions of the document. 1. Running two of the previous spreads a line long, which will leave the final page one line short. 2. Running half a dozen of the previous spreads a line short, thereby bumping a dozen lines along to the final page. 3. Reproportioning some non-textual elementperhaps an illustration or the sinkage at the head of the chapter.