The design of the text and the whole book format is crucial to the content. A book's content can't be divorced from its form because both affect a reader's perception and understanding of the text. As my friend Panofsky says the from and the idea (subject matter) make the content. And as my new friend Roy Harris argues, that content is the reader's constructed context. Typography is as old as text itself.
I disagree with Brady only on his comment regarding the frame. I think the frame is crucial. Hans Hofmann said it simply: The first mark on the canvas is the fifth mark of the composition"; the four edges of the canvas being the other four marks. Similarly, the book form as a whole is the format for the text. The problem here is the metaphorical use of the word transparent. In a literal sense, nothing seen is transparent or it wouldn't be seen. But by his use of the term, Cheerskep apparently wants to recognize that the visual peculiarities of form should not overtake the story (story = the text itself as subject in this case) but should serve as the vehicle that delivers us in comfort to that text. A excellent fusion of typographic design (including the whole space of the page/book) with the idea is the worthy goal. I can't imagine a typographer/designer doing a good job without reading the text. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, October 4, 2010 9:17:01 AM Subject: Re: Typography and literature On Oct 4, 2010, at 12:01 AM, [email protected] wrote: > The ONLY concern about typography (and I include, importantly, type size) > was ease of readability. The notion of harmony between the face and the > "work" was ludicrous to me. I wasn't thinking of any expressive harmony or natural affinity between the typographic design and the story. > You want the reader to look THROUGH the type to the > story etc. Beatrice Warde wrote a famous essay (in publishing and design circles) called "The Crystal Goblet," in which she urged the very same thing, that the graphic design of a text should be as invisible as a crystal goblet in which the beauty of the wine shone forth. It should be *almost* invisible, and when it was noticed, the typographic design should also be beautiful. > The two instructions I gave to book designers was: Nothing smaller then > 11-point, and nothing exotic. They had to have a good excuse to depart from > something as "faceless" -- and thus easy to absorb without thinking about such > stuff as the face -- in those days as Times Roman, which was very likely > what they read in their newspaper that morning. Today, I use Lucida Grande > whenever I can -- e.g. in email and these postings (through Databack has its > will thereafter). . In my plays, I'm restricted to Courier. Your concerns seem to involve purely functional matters of legibility and readability. I was thinking that the graphic design should be fit for the text (as in "fit for a king"), not just produced in a fast, highly efficient way. I've read too many books, both fiction and nonfiction, in which the type design was uninspired, bland, flat, and sometimes actually a bit tedious to read (right now, I'm thinking of a couple of anthologies of art criticism that were set poorly in Times). I thought that maybe the frame of a painting might be analogous, but I don't think so because the frame does nothing to convey the "content" of the painting in the same way that the type design of a book conveys the "content" of the text. (If you cannot see any type , then you cannot read or "get" the story.) And the frames can sometimes be oddly incongruous. I remember the first time I saw a Cezanne in the National Gallery, many years ago in my school days. I had only seen images of Cezanne paintings in books. His works were the great transitional pieces leading from the Post Impressionists to Cubism, as the books explained. Imagine my surprise when I saw his Houses at L'Estaques or View of Mont Ste. Victoire in ornate gold baroque-ish frames! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
