Monday, January 27, 2014

Chapter 3 Response - Allison Nolden

Chapter 3: Syntax and Communication

This chapter is about typographic syntax and communication having their own language in design.  The book states that, “syntax is the connection of typographic signs to form words and sentences on the page.”  Syntax is very important to creating good design and I found that this chapter goes into a lot more detail about it than I had ever known.  I learned that it’s important to have a design that is visually pleasing and communicates well.  I thought the section on columns and margins was very interesting.  I like the examples that demonstrate how important eye movement across the page is.  The book explains that column rhythms, typographic weights, and rules functioning as visual punctuation help eye movement across the page.  I think that knowing what sort of column design is appropriate to use is very helpful in creating balanced design.  I also like being able to see all of the figures provided that demonstrated visual hierarchy.  The book defines visual hierarchy as “an arrangement of elements in a graduated series, from the most prominent to the least prominent, in an area of typographic space.”  I did not know of the visual hierarchy before reading this chapter.  I thought the two part examples that showed the design with dots and then with words were helpful in being able to visualize what design would be appropriate to use.   It was interesting to see the hierarchy in many different ways with the same words.  My favorite part of the chapter was probably the section on ABA form.  I liked how they connected it to musical structure because that is something I am very familiar with.  It was helpful to connect typographic rhythm with musical rhythm. 


I chose this image from the internet to accompany my response to chapter three because I thought it was a very cool image demonstrating ABA form.


No comments:

Post a Comment