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Design
The quiet decisions behind a calm page
Calm pages are not empty pages. They are pages where every gap and size was decided once and kept. Here are the four decisions I make before anything else.
People often describe a page they like as calm. They rarely mean empty. They mean that nothing on it is arguing with anything else, that the eye knows where to go next. That calm comes from a handful of quiet decisions made early and then kept.
When I start any layout, a menu, a poster or a book page, I make four decisions before I place a single word.
One typeface, maybe two
Choose a typeface for reading and stick with it. If you want contrast, add one more for headings, and make sure the two are clearly different: a serif with a sans, a light with a bold. Two typefaces that are nearly the same look like a mistake.
Then choose three sizes and no more: one for headings, one for reading, one for small notes. Most cluttered pages have seven sizes, each chosen in the moment.
“A page feels calm when it looks as though every decision was made once, on purpose, and then repeated.”
Space and edges
Pick one unit of space, say 8 points, and use multiples of it for every gap. The page will start to feel related to itself. Then choose your margins and keep every element inside them. Things that nearly line up are worse than things that clearly do not.
A simple two-column grid. Everything on the page lines up to one of six lines.
Finally, decide on a grid, even a very simple one. Two columns is enough for most pages. Once you have it, line things up to it even when it would be easier not to. The grid is invisible, but the reader feels it.
None of this is about taste. It is about consistency. You can make a calm page with a playful typeface or a serious one, in colour or in black and white. What makes it calm is that the reader never has to wonder whether a difference is meaningful. If two headings are different sizes, they are different kinds of heading. If something sits off the grid, it is there to be noticed.
Beginners often add things to make a page feel finished: a border, a second colour, a little icon. Most of the time the page needs the opposite. Take something away, look again, and see if anything is missing. Usually nothing is, and the page breathes a little more.
On the course we spend a whole week on spacing alone, because it is the decision people notice least and feel most. Once your gaps are consistent, everything else gets easier to judge.
Try it on something small
Take a menu, a gig poster or a notice you have made before. Redo it with one typeface, three sizes, one spacing unit and a two-column grid. Do not add anything. Usually you will remove things.
Put the two versions side by side. The new one will look plainer at first, and then, quite quickly, it will look better. That is the quiet part working.
Learn this properly
Type and layout for beginners
5 weeks
· £210
