Canons of Page Construction

The canons of page construction are a set of principles in the field of book design used to describe the ways that page proportions, margins and type areas (print spaces) of books are constructed.

The notion of canons, or laws of form, of book page construction was popularized by Jan Tschichold in the mid to late twentieth century, based on the work of J. A. van de Graaf, Raúl M. Rosarivo, Hans Kayser, and others. Tschichold wrote, “Though largely forgotten today, methods and rules upon which it is impossible to improve have been developed for centuries. To produce perfect books these rules have to be brought to life and applied.” Kayser's 1946 Ein harmonikaler Teilungskanon had earlier used the term canon in this context.

Typographers and book designers apply these principles to this day, with variations related to the availability of standardized paper sizes, and the diverse types of commercially printed books.

Read more about Canons Of Page Construction:  Van De Graaf Canon, Golden Canon, Current Applications

Famous quotes containing the words canons of, canons, page and/or construction:

    Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism.
    Leslie Fiedler (b. 1917)

    Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism.
    Leslie Fiedler (b. 1917)

    When you’ve been blind as long as I have, you learn to see through your senses. I can’t explain it exactly, but you get a feeling about people when you meet them. You see a picture of them in your mind. Not just what they look like, but what they really are. You see them much more clearly than you do with your eyes. Maybe that’s why they say looks are deceptive.
    —George Bricker. Jean Yarbrough. Helen Page (Jane Adams)

    There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.
    John Dewey (1859–1952)