provided by retinart.net

“A method to produce the perfect book.”

The perfect book. This is how designer-genius Jan Tschichold described this system. Not the ok book, nor the pretty good book, but the perfectbook.

This method existed long before the computer, the printing press and even a defined measuring unit. No picas or points, no inches or millimeters. It can be used with nothing more than a straight edge, a piece of paper and a pencil.

And you can still use it. This is a system which is still as valid, beautiful and elegant with ultra-modern design as it ever was for the work of the scribes, Gutenberg and Tschichold.

Van de Graaf canon in John Baskervill´s work from PercyKlvana on Vimeo.

The Secret Canon & Page Harmony

Books were once a luxury only the richest could afford and would take months of work to be brought to fruition.

And they were harmoniously beautiful.

The bookmakers knew the secret to the perfect book. They shared among themselves a system—a canon—by which their blocks of text and the pages they were printed on would “agree with one another and become a harmonious unit.”

 So elegant is this method of producing harmony that a few designers saw to rediscover it. Even though it was considered a trade-secret, they all came to the same conclusion, hundreds of years apart, independent of one another, but each supported by the other.

They found the way to design a harmonious page. A perfect page.

To read the full post [click here]

The meetinghouse.co is becoming my go to place to send people for creative {news} {inspiration} and {opportunity}. I am adding a new category { lesson } As I create or find new lessons that apply to my projects I will post them here in a searchable web format.

Today’s lesson on page harmony couldn’t be presented any better than by the amazing Alexander Ross Charchar—creator of the blog Retinart. There are so many interesting entries on his site, I recommend you check it out. I know I could learn a thing or two about controlling type online and I look forward to the completion of his to do list – see below. Alexander admits he is a very lucky guy who loves what he does. Here’s how he describes his blog: “Retinart is my playground and this design is deliberately still a baby. I wanted to develop it in front of you and try new things along the way. I have a number of things to do, so things will evolve slowly.”

Thank you Alexander, I’m very excited to present this {lesson} here and look forward to more features on the history of graphic design, typography, and how it all relates to contemporary web applications.

The Secret Law of Page Harmony