Click to enlarge.

This excellent piece of typography was found on designersbookshop.com, a company that creates tools for designers to use in making compositional/typographic grids.

Notice there are 6 columns here, 3 per page. The outside columns are left blank to serve as the margins. The gutter between the two pages is thin, as the 2 text blocks on either side are pushed together in the middle. What you start to see is that there are 3 designs occuring here: Each page has 2 text columns that are perfectly balanced on the page. Not only that, looking at everything together you see that the entire 2 page spread is harmoniously arranged.

The spread is not crammed full of information: at least half of the surface is untouched by ink. This allows the design to “breathe.” It makes the content on the page more important and eye catching. Even though you probably can’t read this language, you want to sit and look at it. That is perfect design: It needs no improvement.

Our books today traditionally have a single wide text column on each page. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of those broken in two like this. Of course, magazines make use of this extensively, using 2 and 3 columns per page. But magazines also tend to over-crowd.

Printed in London, 1581, by Christopher Barker.

These typefaces, the paper, the density, the uneven quality of the ink: All these elements come together to give us an example of lush typography from the 16th century.

Look how the margin notes wrap into the text column (especially apparent in the second image). We could apply this to current design projects just as you see it, or in other ways too. What other secondary or tertiary design elements could be allowed to “impede” on the territory of the top-level heirarchy?

Click each image to view a large version.

Source: Fromoldbooks.org.