第62页 Structural Forms & Devices

4.1.3 Set titles and openings in a form that contributes to the overall design.

Renaissance books, with their long titles and ample margins, generally left no extra space at the heads of chapters. In modern books, where the titles are shorter and the margins have been eaten by inflationary pressure, a third of a page sometimes lies vacant just to celebrate the fact that the chapter begins. But space alone is not enough to achieve the sense of richness and celebration, nor is absence of space necessarily a sign of typographic poverty.

Narrow row houses flush with street are found not only in urban slums but in the loveliest of the old Italian hill towns and Mediterranean villages. A page full of letters presents the same possibilities. It can lapse into a typographic slum, or grow into a model of architectural grace, skilled engineering and simple economy. Broad suburban lawns and wide typographical front yards can also be uninspiringly empty or welcoming and graceful. They can display real treasure, including the treasure of empty space, or they can be filled with souvenirs of wishful thinking. Neoclassical birdbaths and effigies of liveried slaves, stable boys and faded pink flamingoes all have counterparts in the typographic world.

// what a insightful piece with flowery language.