I was surprised by some very odd typographic choices in Tufte’s new book. Halfway through, he explains: “Systematic regularity of text paragraphs is universally inconvenient for readers… Idiosyncratic paragraphs assist memory and retrieval” A fascinating idea—I’m not sure!
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The tyranny of the grid! The tyranny of text-in-boxes! The oppressive constancy of text-in-boxes-in-rectangles! It is good to see attempts to systematically break this.
“Nearly every paragraph in this book is deliberately visually unique."
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Unsurprisingly, he draws a great deal on typographic ideas from poetry, but his ideas about “text matrices” seem mostly influenced by principles of information architecture.
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This is a particularly dynamic page expressing some really lovely ideas along those lines.
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I was wondering about the same thing! Sometimes it serves the content, what he calls “content driven” but sometimes it seems just sloppy.
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Yes, I had the same feeling of uneasiness. Am I just missing the idea? Who am I to question the master?? :)
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reminds me of the studies that show the more difficult the typeface, the better it’s retained. 😂
not sure it’s a great principle to build an entire book around altho his version is very beautiful
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when publishing company you own, make unusual books you do
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I want the visual style so idiosyncratic I misread it and come up with a new idea by accident
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A disturbing percentage of my best ideas came from literally misreading someone else’s idea because of dyslexia
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