A Simpler Page

The physical book is something designers get. It’s got a lot going for it, not the least of which is the fact that it’s physical. The boundaries are there, right before us. No guess work is necessary. And so there are a lot of great examples of well designed books. You needn’t look far to uncover a mountain of beautifully typeset and balanced pages.

But what about digital books?

Tablets are in many ways just like physical books—the screen has well defined boundaries and the optimal number of words per line doesn’t suddenly change on the screen. But in other ways, tablets are nothing like physical books—the text can extend in every direction, the type can change size. So how do we reconcile these similarities and differences? Where is the baseline for designers looking to produce beautiful, readable text on a tablet?

This essay looks to address these very questions. This essay also marks the release of an HTML baseline typography library for tablet reading. It’s currently iPad optimized. It’s called Bibliotype and the hope is for it to provide a solid base atop which we can explore. It’s very rudimentary, but rudimentary is a damn fine place to start.

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