What is meant by a type area? We use this term to mean the area on a page which stands out from the paper as a filled book page. In other words: The type area shows the lines of a book in a full book page. (Page numbers and other dead column titles are not included in the type area.)
A beautiful
type area is a pleasing relation between the
print space and the paper space. For assessing this relation, we will
always view a double page of a book – like we always see two
pages of a book side by side when reading the book. Basically the type
area with respect to the blank paper borders should be formed in such
a way that the upper border is smaller than the bottom border. At the
same time, the inner borders of the two pages should not be wider than
the relevant left or right border of a book page.
There are various methods for deducing beautiful relations of
paper space and type area. Perhaps you have already heard the term
The Golden Section
, which is used here. A relation is perfect
when the type area's ratio of width to height is the same as the
paper's ratio of width to height. You may e.g. define the type area in
a book page using a border ratio of 2:3:5:8. Using a simple DIN A5
page format, and defining 16 mm for the inner border (back margin),
24 mm for the upper border (capital margin), 40 mm for the outer
border, and 64 mm for the bottom border (foot margin), you will get a
very esthetic relation of type area and paper size.
You can surely imagine that deducing the golden section for various page formats has been a science in past centuries. Publishing houses tried to distance themselves from competitors, but copying these ideal type areas that have been found over the centuries has led to our type areas used today.
But now you will get to know a method which leads you to success much faster than any other relation formulas or miraculous value tables could ever do. You will learn how to give your books of any page format beautiful type areas. We are talking about Division By Nine and Division by Twelve – which can be learned and used very easily.
