4. Genre and layout

Layout is the arrangement of material on a page or screen that articulates the text we are reading. The earliest forms of the book provided a linear visual presentation, with little if any spacing between words and paragraphs, which was close to the continuous linear quality of speech. ‘Genre and layout’ explains that the use of different sizes of different scripts, different coloured initials, and different columnar arrangements became essential to the articulation of increasingly complex documents. It describes different typographic genres and analyses layout. The details of layout and typography have a considerable effect on the way the whole of a publication is perceived.