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.

A List Apart: Articles: A Simpler Page

Embracing the digital book

I'm sitting in a cafe in central Tokyo, desperately trying to enjoy a book on my iPad. Distractions abound: sloppy typography, misspelt words, confusing page breaks, widows, orphans, broken tables. These and more pull me from the narrative spell. In that moment I realize, although I've had this substantial object of glass and metal for a few weeks, I haven't managed more than ten pages of anything.

What, then, is the problem?

It's not the screen — I've happily read several novels on my iPhone.

It's not the weight — it feels fine when resting on a table or my knee.

The problem is much simpler: iBooks and Kindle.app are incompetent e-readers. They get in the way of the reading experience and treat digital books like poorly typeset PDFs.

We can do better. (We have to do better.)

But there's something beyond interface and design issues nagging at me: these applications are ignoring a core characteristic unique to digital text. They're ignoring the meta-data created as we move through and mark our e-books.

Craig Mod