Chapters 4 and 5

Chapter 4 is about the Typographic Grid. A grid is a skeletal framework which designers use to organize information within an area of space. This system is able to provide a strategy in order to create text and other visual information within two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. Grid systems help designers in making their information clear and legible. These are extremely important traits, especially since our world is being cluttered by visual noise. As long as the grid is used effectively, they will provide the correct form and space which will lead to a proportional balance and be aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, the final result will be comprehended by your target audience.

The present-day grid was based off of human’s earliest written forms. After the mechanization of printing during the 15th century created a structural convention and typographic principles that have continued to survive.

Gutenberg’s forty-two-line Bible was Europe’s first typographic book. From here, other books were similarly structured during the Renaissance throughout Europe. The development of the modern cannot however, be attributed to a specific or single moment in history. It comes from designers experimenting with form and space.

For example, in 1925, Jan Tschichold designed a cover for the journal Typographische Mitteilungen. The twenty-four page insert for this journal advocated asymmetrical typography. This began a new wave of grid layout and structure.

Space is used at the basis for all typographic communication. Whenever typographic elements are introduced into space, they create divisions. These divisions are what create spatial structure. Shifting size, weight, and position are how new spatial structures come to be.

Chapter 5:

Chapter 5 teaches us about syntax and communication. Similar to typographic anatomy, syntax has its own language that must be learned in order to understand typographic design fully. Syntax is the connecting of typographic signs to form words and sentences within the page. Using elements of design - letter, word, line, column, and margin- one is able to create a balance through the use of typographic space, visual hierarchy, and grid systems.

Letters are used for both being part of a word, but individually, are combined into new designs. These combinations allow for an expressiveness and boldness to the individual letters themselves. It relates to syntax because letter combinations are acting as signs instead of only part of a word.

Words are used to express an idea. Known to be used independently, word signs can signify or reveal a new meaning when used through complex design. By combining form and counterform into words units, designers are able to discover sublet connections and typographic rhythms. However not all words are able to offer the potential for this occur.

Words are joined by typographic lines. The placement of lines in type are important to the structure of space. In its most basic form, a single line of type is composed of a point size and weight which is extended horizontally over a specific line width. Lines can be designed to be asymmetrical or symmetrical. It is the reader that must comprehend a relationship between the lines of type and the space that surrounds them.