Dear César, João, Gunnar, David, Carlos, Verdian, Ken and all,
Thank you for all your inputs on better type-setting a double column book.
My core issue is to increase word density (words/page) by around 10% and at the same time increase readability and make the visual appearance more relaxed and attractive, i.e more white space. Double column layout seems to offer a way forward. This reduces page count by better management of wasted line space. It also improves readability by reducing word count per line. Potentially, it also gives more white space and structure.
My interest was in getting research findings specific to double column layout and how best to set type for it that differs from single column layout.
Thus far, it seems there is lots of generic research material on readability and type. Within that are lots of contradictions that are even more contradictory ion 2 column layout. For example, Rudi de Lange's research shows conventions about relative value of serif/non-serif are not so straightforward. The writings about using x-height as a better measure of readability are broken by the reality that very small point sizes in some traditional small x-height fonts from the past seem to have excellent readability. Another contradictions is that some believe centre margins should be less than edge margins because they effectively count twice on an open book. Other believe the opposite.
In contrast, there appears to be a shortage of solid research on any of these and many other topics as they relate to optimising double column book layout and typesetting. So, back to using the eyeballs and comments from others on different prototypes as Gunnar suggested.
This topic is one of the most simple that can be sorted in design research. It's an ideal Masters by Research or PhD research project.
The obvious way forward is to identify the main dimensions (margins, type class, type size/leading, page ratio, heading style, etc ), create a set of samples with 3-4 variants of each and test a mix of quantitative (reading speed, comprehension, etc) and qualitative (ease of reading, attractiveness etc) assessments and create an n-dimensional map showing optimal regions.
This gives a straight path, design research findings -> design guidelines.
Please?
Thanks to everyone for their input, and as always to Gunnar for his sense of mischief.
Best wishes,
Terry
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Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
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-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of CÉSAR ARTURO PUERTAS CÉSPEDES
Sent: Saturday, 29 November 2014 11:59 AM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subject: Re: Request - resources on double column setting of books
Hello Terence,
Page count can be reduced in many ways, one of them being the choice of the right typeface. Given the same x-height, legible, text typefaces can be compared by the horizontal space of their designs. In latin script this can be done by taking a few letters (H, w, n, o, i) as representative of the diverse character widths, measuring their size in UPMs (Units per M) and relating this magnitude with the x height so that a comparison is possible.
I made this experiment as the starting point of a research project on automatic ways to choose a typeface and these are the preliminary results:
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bgb4FZql6EcPecj7pVdt_4lxZVzBVm0XOwfCI9tDRIo/edit?usp=sharing
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmR2PB2SpDwjdEw5X1JZSzY5U2U1ZE5aQ0x6ckZGaHc#gid=0
The first link is the text of a presentation I gave on this topic and the second is a small database with the measurements taken. Perhaps you can find these useful.
All the best,
--
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