Chapter 3 reading response

Chapter 3 talks about how the syntax of a typographic letter forms sentences on a page. It also talks about how those letters are formed into columns in order for them to be legible. In this chapter, I learned about letters and words, and how they are formed. A letter is the unit that distinguishes one family of type from another. When letters are put together, they can represent signs. A word used to express an idea, an object, or an event. Word signs are independent of things they represent, yet by design they can be made to signify and reveal their meaning. Words can also be joined together to form verbal sentences and typographic lines. Then each of these letters,words, and text would be put into columns for visual hierarchy and space. You can also emphasize horizontal or vertical movements in text columns. I thought that this chapter was interesting because a lot of what they're talking about is representative of how books are made. When  people are designing books, they have to know the right letters to use that would space out with each other and how to add that to the column. They would also have to use these three variables that governs the relationships between columns; the proportion of column height to width, texture, and tone. Newspapers and magazines are designed like this as well. I think this chapter highlights something that not talked about a lot of times which is how important text, letters, and words have to be lined up with each other in order to have coherence and flow between them. This chapter also highlights the importance of using margins because margins not only frame parts of pages, they also contain supportive elements. Those supportive elements are what helps text flow coherently from page to page.