The codex was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term "codex" is now reserved for older manuscript books, which mostly used sheets of vellum, parchment, or papyrus, rather than paper.
Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of design and of the fine arts. Its practice involves creativity, innovation and lateral thinking using manual or digital tools, where it is usual to use text and graphics to communicate visually.
A manuscript was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has come to be understood to further include any written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same.
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacing, and spaces between pairs of letters. The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information.
A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. This contrasts with variable-width fonts, where the letters and spacings have different widths.
Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online content. Desktop publishing software can generate page layouts and produce text and image content comparable to the simpler forms of traditional typography and printing. This technology allows individuals, businesses, and other organizations to self-publish a wide variety of content, from menus to magazines to books, without the expense of commercial printing.
In typography, the pilcrow (¶) is a glyph used to identify a paragraph. In editorial production the pilcrow typographic character may also be known as the paragraph mark, the paragraph sign, the paragraph symbol, the paraph, and the blind P.
In typography, leading is the space between adjacent lines of type; the exact definition varies.
A scroll, also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing.
In typography, text or font in all caps contains capital letters without any lowercase letters. For example:
THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG.
The history of books starts with the development of writing, and various other inventions such as paper and printing, and continues through to the modern-day business of book printing. The earliest knowledge society has on the history of books actually predates what would conventionally be called "books" today and begins with tablets, scrolls, and sheets of papyrus. The current format that we consider to be books, with separate sheets fastened together rather than a scroll, is called a codex. Then hand-bound, expensive, and elaborate manuscripts appeared in codex form. These gave way to press-printed volumes and eventually led to the mass-printed volumes prevalent today. Contemporary books may even have no physical presence with the advent of the e-book. The book also became more accessible to the disabled with the advent of Braille and audiobook.
Cambria is a transitional serif typeface commissioned by Microsoft and distributed with Windows and Office. It was designed by Dutch typeface designer Jelle Bosma in 2004, with input from Steve Matteson and Robin Nicholas. It is intended as a serif font that is suitable for body text, that is very readable printed small or displayed on a low-resolution screen and has even spacing and proportions.
In graphic design, page layout is the arrangement of visual elements on a page. It generally involves organizational principles of composition to achieve specific communication objectives.
In typesetting and page layout, alignment or range is the setting of text flow or image placement relative to a page, column (measure), table cell, or tab.
Type color, or colour, is an element of typography that describes how dense or heavy the text appears on the page. Finding the correct balance of type color and white space can make text more easily readable. The term type color should not be confused with the usual meaning of color, ; instead it has more to do with the blackness or boldness of the text on the page. A bold font weight creates more contrast on the page, therefore creates more emphasis. Using a bold font is therefore one way that type color can be adjusted.
In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is ultimately derived from the Latin initiālis, which means of the beginning. An initial is often several lines in height, and, in older books or manuscripts, may take the form of an inhabited or historiated initial. Certain important initials, such as the Beatus initial, or B, of Beatus vir... at the opening of Psalm 1 at the start of a vulgate Latin. These specific initials in an illuminated manuscript were also called initia.
A biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. Biblical manuscripts vary in size from tiny scrolls containing individual verses of the Jewish scriptures to huge polyglot codices containing both the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the New Testament, as well as extracanonical works.
In typography, a column is one or more vertical blocks of content positioned on a page, separated by gutters or rules. Columns are most commonly used to break up large bodies of text that cannot fit in a single block of text on a page. Additionally, columns are used to improve page composition and readability. Newspapers very frequently use complex multi-column layouts to break up different stories and longer bodies of texts within a story. Column can also more generally refer to the vertical delineations created by a typographic grid system which type and image may be positioned. In page layout, the whitespace on the outside of the page are known as margins; the gap between two facing pages is also considered a gutter, since there are columns on both sides.
Bookbinding is the process of building a book, usually in codex format, from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools, or in modern publishing, by a series of automated processes. Firstly, one binds the sheets of papers along an edge with a thick needle and strong thread. One can also use loose-leaf rings, binding posts, twin-loop spine coils, plastic spiral coils, and plastic spine combs, but they last for a shorter time. Next, one encloses the bound stack of paper in a cover. Finally, one places an attractive cover onto the boards, and features the publisher's information and artistic decorations.
Matthew Coffin Butterick is an American typographer, lawyer, writer, and computer programmer. He received the 2012 Golden Pen Award from the Legal Writing Institute for his book Typography for Lawyers, which started as a website in 2008 based on his experience as a practicing attorney. He has worked for The Font Bureau and founded his own website design company, Atomic Vision. Expanding Typography for Lawyers, Butterick published Practical Typography as a "web-based book" in July 2013.
