Layout
(typesetting) & Page Design
The layout and design (aka,
typesetting) of a book or project is a carefully crafted, perfectly
balanced, structurally engineered and executed work of art. Just look at the
incredible architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright—it's like the rhythm of a
page, the amazing harmony of a perfectly constructed newsletter, catalog,
magazine ad, or even a billboard.
Remember the first artist that escaped
the boundaries of the billboard? It was over 35 years ago. The artist
created an image (I think it was the long neck and face of a giraffe) that
dared to break through the standard billboard's rectangular frame, rise
above the mundane wooden marquee, and peer down at the highwaymen below. It
was like a jack-in-the-box released from the box.
This spawned a whole new generation of
marquee mavericks—the polygon pundits who now painted and/or created frames
around their rectangular canvasses so they could punch through the frame
with an interesting shape such as a pair of dancing shoes, a pony's tail, a
brass saxophone, or a brightly colored beach umbrella. Breaking out of the
frame was like breaking out of jail to some, they had penetrated the
margins, and now they were free at last!
Layout is just like that! There are so
many rules about balance, proportion, division of space, negative space,
white space, gray space, symmetry, and asymmetry. There are visual vectors,
unity, gravity, redundancy, perspective, and optical centers to contemplate.
And more rules about emphasis, subordination, harmony, contrast, the golden
mean, and the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the Parthenon. WOW!
Next you must consider fonts:
typefaces, styles, point sizes, serifs or san serifs, line spacing, leading,
kerning, and tracking. And there are margins, "coastlines," widows and
orphans, bullets and dingbats, and edges such as ragged or justified or
centered or right aligned; and that's all without graphics or color.
Just like the famous artists and
writers who dared to break the rules, you must know them first before you
can break them, and then you must follow the rules until you can break them
with style like the billboard artist who broke the frame and rose above it.
It's a talent, a gift like composing a concerto at age four. Salieri could
play all the notes but he could not make the music. Some people can
mechanically create an interesting layout that follows all the rules, but
they'll never be a Mozart.
Call us if you want something
different, something so unique that even Frank Lloyd Wright would stand up
and notice.
