An introduction to layout design. There are general principles; there was also more detailed advice on designing brochures, business cards, and other stuff I don't care about. But the general principles seem like stuff I could apply.
- Proximity Keep related things together
- Alignment Create strong lines through alignment. Use alignment to "connect" far-apart page elements.
- Repetition Re-use elements
- Contrast Why use a small difference when you can use a big one?
Families of type. Don't use two typefaces from the same family--they'll be similar enough such that they won't work for contrast. That rule of thumb of using sans-serif vs. serif for headers vs. body text comes from this general principle.
- Oldstyle Times, Palatino, Baskerville, Garamond
- Modern radical thick/thin transitions more likely to hit at 90deg than at the slanty-pen Oldstyle look. Bodoni, Times Bold
- Slab serif Thicker lines. Clarendon, Memphis, New Century Schoolbook. Readable for extensive text, but they make the page look dark.
- Sans serif Be careful with varying-weight fonts like Optima--they don't combine well with other sans-serif, but also don't combine well with serif fonts
- Script
- Decorative
Labels: book, decoration