Typography that disappears

Display type is chosen to be noticed. Book type is chosen to be forgotten, and that is a much harder brief.

Measure before anything

Line length does more damage than any other setting. Too long and the eye loses the return; too short and the rhythm breaks every few words. Somewhere between 60 and 75 characters usually works, but the number is a symptom, not the goal — set a page, read it properly, and adjust until nothing snags.

Leading follows the face

A face with a large x-height needs more space between lines than its point size suggests, because the letters fill more of the band. Copy a leading value from one book into another and it will often feel either cramped or loose for no reason the designer can name.

Choosing the face

Most text faces that have survived a century are survivors for a reason, and a book is rarely the place to be adventurous. The useful question is not which face is best, but which one disappears fastest in the particular size, paper and ink you are printing on. A face that looks crisp on screen can close up badly on uncoated stock.

Print a page. Read it in the light the book will actually be read in. Nearly every typographic argument resolves itself at that point.

When the book is also a file

Most books now exist twice — on paper and on a screen that reflows them. The temptation is to design once and export, which produces a page that is slightly wrong in both places. It is usually better to accept that the screen version will lose the measure and the page breaks, and to protect the things that survive: hierarchy, contrast and a sensible reading order.