Ethan Switch - Monday, March 17, 2003 - Print Version
The basic premise of the Kama Sutra is to provide visual guides for enterprising and consenting sexual partners (or strangers) a way to explore positions in the art of fornication. It is an idea not that far removed from that of reading a book, any book, for extended periods of time. In both instances there is the task at hand and if a suitable position isn't found it could prove to be the undoing and perhaps even sour the moment. Which is why spending a mere 118 minutes reading a book in typography and lay out was rather startling. Startling in the fact that it only took 118 minutes to read all of the 186 pages in a library. Index not included in the reading.
Variations on a theme can always prove to yield endless results no matter what the situation. Such is the subject of a page of text and/or graphics. Design & Typography in easy steps is much like a learner's guide into the world of page lay out. Providing numerous examples and little pointers it presents an easy to understand hand with which to hold and follow into in the treacherous world of copy manipulation.
One important aspect of manipulating text is that of the text itself and the relationship it shares with the page it resides. Lorem Ipsum is the name given to what would seem to be gibberish, letters that from a glance might be considered Latin. But the employment of such a set of text is nothing more than to help the designer get a feeling for what the final outcome of the page will be. Trouble with this is that in the given samples passages of this mystical text might be misconstrued as actual body text. It wasn't helped that the same font type was used between the body text and the Lorem Ipsum.
The narrative and style of the writer - one Sally Hughes of the UK - helped a lot in the completion of the pages. Small, short words with constant tipping in the margins made it feel as if the information was flowing like a shot of novocaine into the jaws. It wasn't until the section on the design of web pages arose that I felt the cold stare back of the hazel-eyed blonde bearing down on me. And by then the book was finished.
Sections were nicely sectioned and devoted to the many aspects that can bombard the designer or typesetter in their work. The rivers of white space, the ability of light weighted text to disappear into the background and the pros and cons of various fonts for various occasions.
It would seem as though previous readers of either the series or the author have not cottoned on and harked the advice, to which the icon for REMEMBER is that of a severed finger tied to a piece of string. Much to think about, although the use of trauma has never been successful in helping people to recall information or data. Think of the brainwashed.
Overall, a book about space, about time and about the lines in the sand of letters that run through the world can only serve to help those looking to be helped and haven't already tested out their ideas on a student publication. If you want to see what marvels text and the page can get up to when you're really putting some artistic design into the work, check out Design & Typography in easy steps for what might seem like simple foreplay but if the detached extremities serve up a charm, it could very well be the main course.
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