Generally speaking, optical center is slightly above actual center, so your top margin should be smaller than your bottom margin and, according to general proportional rules, the outside margin should be slightly larger than the inside margin.

Garamond is a reasonable choice but, given the presbyopic nature of your readers (like me), ITC Garamond Condensed (larger x-height) at 12/14 might be preferable...or not.

General approach is good and adequate to contents. This kind of publication does not let much room for artistic or creative design, it needs to be technical and simple as yours.

Inside margin may need to be larger due to binding.

I agree with Oldnick: top margin must be smaller and bottom larger. If you will have footnotes, this is even more needed because you have more graphic elements at the bottom of page.

Garamond has a rather small x-height. So 11.5/14pt or 12/15pt will produce better reading experience to your public. With larger text you may use just two wider columns.

Scientific publications usually adopt footer indication about article title and/or author name and/or edition number and date.

I don't think an old style like Garamond is sufficiently "serious" for psychiatry these days.
Perhaps in the days of Freud and Jung.
But now, the mainstream of psychiatry is more scientific, in the sense of being concerned with prescribing particular drugs for particular conditions, not psychotherapy on a couch.
So I would recommend something less literary and old-fashioned.
No doubt your client has a reason for wanting Garamond, but it is a wrong reason.

Hi guys thanks for the fast replies...very interesting tips indeed.

I think i get what you say about the botton margin being larger than the top one. Maybe to get closer to the idea of the good proportion as Tschichold said in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Van_de_Graaf_canon_in_book_design.svg

Regarding your suggestions i made a couple of fast samples

Body Type:Stemple Garamond LT.
Size/Leading: 12/15 pt

Footnotes: Myriad Pro
Size/Leading: 10/13 pt

1) One column with good space at the bottom margin for footnotes.
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1vLXsfXq53wk4dFEP5r2zIaiVzZL

2) Two columns with good space at the bottom margin for footnotes. (the 2 columns have more design features to play with that a one column central paragraph i think).
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1lhMQXECGovEpBPynEwKQQlSVt42J

3) Two columns with a vertical footnote.
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=11ZwQYjxwKvUE12UM1h3bok6vZk76Y0

So what do you think you like the best?

I am sorry but my client is decided that the font has to be Garamond. There is a famous psychoanalytical essay of Lacan regarding Garamond Font, and even though it is not a good enough functional design reason to me but is my client fascination with this so Garamond will have to be. Later on what version of Garamond: Stemple or Adobe Garamond Pro.

By the way, i just found an interesting website with a Golden Section A4 Template with margins and grids. It could be interesting to give it a try.
http://www.thegridsystem.org/2008/templates/indesign-a4-grid-system-6/

Thanks again for the insight on this, and keep commenting if you wish.

Cheers,

I think if they want something classic, that is fine. They are obviously more concerned about looking serious than trendy. If it's German, though, as in your sample, I wonder because of the relatively small x-height of Adobe Garamond, the caps are quite prominent in the sample you show. Would Sabon be better? Or the caption size of Garamond Premier Pro, set smaller, magazine style, as you have it?

Geometrical schemas to construct page margins are presented in detail by Robert Bringhurst in Elements of Typographical Style. van de Graaf's is one of them.

Anyway, I never agreed about these schemas because they produces margins too large without a real logical reason. To have a geometrical division of the page is not enough (in my opinion, of course) to waste so much space on paper.

Grid systems are useful to layouts with many elements, especially newspapers. In your case, this is not necessary.

I did a sample using these margins:
Top: 18mm, bottom: 24mm, outside: 16mm; inside: 30mm.

You can see it in small and full size. The InDesign file is also available.

I used Berthold Garamond in 11.5/14pt because this is my favorite Garamond revival. It's just an example (text is from Deutsche Wikipedia page about Psychiatry).

If you/your client is set on a Garamond, consider MVB Verdigris.

@ William Berkson
thanks for the tip. Sorry but i didn't understand very well what you said about "I wonder because of the relatively small x-height of Adobe Garamond, the caps are quite prominent in the sample you show". In the next sample i did use Stemple Garamond instead of Adobe Garamond Pro (OTF).

@Freiberger
Thanks a lot for the good advice on Geometrical Scheme on pages and for actually doing a full example. The jpg are pretty good to have a good idea of what you said but for some reason InDesign will not let me open the file since it ask me many plugins...that is strange. Do you have Indesign CS4 or CS5? Berthold Garamond in 11.5/14pt looks very sharp. Thanks 1000 for doing the example.

@ Frode frank, MVB Verdigris, looks quite nice...do you think the client might tell the difference compared to Garamond?

Sorry, I didn't look closely. The Stemple Garamond seems to have even more prominent caps than Adobe Garamond. I guess that's why I noticed them in your sample.

MVB Verdigris is very good. The italic is different from the Granjon styles used with most Garamonds, but it's unusually readable for an italic.

Sabon is a Garamond—it is named after a student of Garamond.

If you are going away from Garamond, I can't resist mentioning my own Williams Caslon, the italic of which is currently used here in the titles on Typophile. It also has a serious look, but more approachable.

From the Garamond wiki. It depends on your client. Why did they ask for a Garamond?

There is a well known essay from the famous philosopher/psychologist Lacan on the Garamond Font and even though it is not a good enough design reason to me the client like the magazine to be in Garamond honoring the psychologist master work.

Well, that sounds ok, but it also leaves open the possibility of using a contemporary rendering of Garamond like Verdigris in my opinion. Here's a critique on it, btw. I have no stakes in this, I just happen to think it's a great typeface.

The term "font" is refering to the actual software file, not the design. The philosopher's essay was likely on the "typeface".

How many footnotes do you expect to have and what will be their function (will they be long parenthetical explanations or brief citations, for example)? The use of Myriad 10/13 for footnotes with Stempel or Adobe Garamond 12/15 seems odd to me, because if there is a lot of footnote on the page, the Myriad will look dominant. Myriad 10 has almost the same x-height as Adobe Garamond 12 (and I think the x-height of Stempel Garamond is about the same), and being sans Myriad is denser. If you will have a lot of footnote text, it would be much simpler to use a Garamond for both, using different optical sizes.

@frode frank
you are right the essay is on the "Typeface". I will try to get a hold on it, it seems complicated but interesting.

@archaica
you are right on target. Myriad 10/13 for footnootes is too big. I don't know how many footnotes will appear but nevertheless Myriad 10 pt is way too strong visually. I will change it to Garamond as you said.

There is a famous psychoanalytical essay of Lacan regarding Garamond Font, and even though it is not a good enough functional design reason to me but is my client fascination with this so Garamond will have to be.

Well, if I had a client who specified Garamond on my behalf, citing as radical a figure as Lacan, I would be sure to use Tony Stan's version, set very large without much leading.

@ Nick Shinn
Thanks for good advice! I checked Tony Stan's version and it says "ITC Garamond Light" is that right? I read in some forums - i don't know what is the reason - that people speak with certain disdain about the ITC Garamond versions. For example, Michael Bierut, but his dislike is mostly a matter of guts without any rational reason to it.

http://www.designobserver.com/observatory/entry.html?entry=2577

Nevertheless, what large size would you recommend for body text? I tried 12/14 pt and look interesting but i have not made any Printing Test yet.

...people speak with certain disdain about the ITC Garamond versions...

There is indeed snobbery directed at ITC Garamond.
It is said by some that a face with such a large x-height has no business appearing in book text.
ITC Garamond was also extremely popular in commercial work (the old "trade" stigma) in the 1970s and 80s, as well as being Apple's display face (in the Condensed version), where it acquired the negative connotation of being the face of desktop publishing in the 1980s, when DTP signified cheap and nasty typography.

However, if your client is going to challenge you with a Lacanian peccadillo, I would say that warrants a non-conformist response.

For the exact size and leading, and whether you choose Light or Regular weight, experiment and trust your judgement, but in my opinion the Light is far more interesting. I prefer it without much leading, as the extenders are so short.

With Light for text and Book for footnotes, fixing the optimum relationship could help structure your page.

@Nick Shinn

Thanks for a great historical explanation on why ITC Garammond is look down. As far i can see there is no real functional or aesthetic reason (as could be the case for top of the chart most hated type Comic Sans...haha).

I will try the light version for body text and book for footnotes with different leading and compared to other Garamonds (Berthold, Stempler and Adobe Garamond Pro OTF) to see how they look.

Cheers,

I don't agree with Nick that the controversy over ITC Garamond for text is just a matter of history—at least that's not the view of a lot of the critics. Do a google search on Typophile for ITC Garamond and you will see a lot of threads debating it. I liked particularly Carl Crossgrove's analysis of its defects, but I can't find the thread now.

ITC Garamond is a) hideous and b) not Garamond, and no amount of nostalgia for 70s and 80s advertising justifies its continued existence let alone use. This isn't snobbery, this is full-on hatred.

Last time I checked MVB had a very restrictive EULA, not permitting to publish a PDF online set in any of their fonts, without a prior special agreement with MVB. Keep this in mind if your client needs online publishing. I mention it because you said something about a masters paper, and if the university is going to host his thesis for public access online, then he could get into troubles.

If it should be a Garamond, then Sabon should be considered too. Minion is not officially a Garamond but to my amateur eye it looks close enough, slightly more condensed, slightly higher x-hight, which brings it closer to the feel of Times New Roman, without being too high in contrast and definitely more and old-style typeface than TNR.

Perhaps Nick is making a subtle joke, hinting that Lacan, like ITC Garamond, hasn't been taken seriously since the 70s or 80s....

Just some notes. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it, but there are two general "Garamonds." Haul out your Bringhurst. Quick synopsis, not entirely accurate: One tradition is more or less out of the Garamond foundry. The other is the work of the French Huguenot, Jean Jannon -- Garamond No. 3, Monotype Garamond being prime examples. Tongue partly in cheek, the Jannon variants seem perfect for psychology. Sadly, the digital versions of Garamond No. 3 and Monotype Garamond are lacking.

* * *

I tried to get Stempel Garamond to work, first with the Linotron 202, and later wth PostScript. Miserable font. Sidebearings wrong, letterfit poor. Well, maybe I'm just squawking because I couldn't fix it. Blow to the ego. Letterforms (as oppose to fit) are beautiful.

As John Hudson said (but less crudely), ITC Garamond didn't even get hind teat, it got pushed clean off. No nourishment at all.

Sabon Next isn't Sabon, but it is a pretty nice Garamond.

A lot of the revivals don't look good printed offset, esp. direct to plate, which is how yo'll be printing the magazine, I imagine.

If it has to have the name "Garamond," that is, if Sabon Next is out, Adobe Garamond is probably it. But take a look at Adobe Garamond Premier Pro, a different font than Adobe Garamond.

FWIW

Sebastian,

I made the InDesign sample with CS5. Probably you're using an older version and thus got error messages. I did other versions: ID markup from CS5 and CS4, which may be opened with both. And also an interchange CS3 version. Hope one of these will work.

As you said the font was already chosen, I did not talk about this. But others pointed Garamond has many cuts (and there is also Adobe Garamond Premier and Simoncini Garamond, not cited until now). Bitstream had four cuts (American, Classical, Elegant and Original Garamond) but I guess these are just copies from others. So you may choose between seven cuts, besides revivals with other names as MVB Verdigris.

As nowadays Psychiatry uses a lot of Biochemical, you may consider how the numbers of all these Garamond work with technical information present in the articles. Superiors and inferiors may be need to Mathematical and Chemical formulas. Some OT features, like arbitrary fractions, could also be an issue. Old style numbers are more elegant than lining ones. But if you have many numbers in a text, I think old style ones do not works so well.

To footnotes, it would be better to remain with the same font used in main text –maybe with a different cut, as Nick suggested.

@Bill: I don't agree with Nick that the controversy over ITC Garamond for text is just a matter of history.

That's not what I said.
I said some people don't think [present tense] it appropriate for book text, and that ALSO, historically, it acquired a stigma.
I didn't connect those statements.
John's hatred is something else again.

I attempted to explain the "disdain" Sebastian had noted, by referring to when it was ridiculously popular; today that widespread contempt is exhibited towards Papyrus, Comic Sans, Arial and Helvetica, but ITC Garamond still has some of its old reputation with those who remember, such as Michael Beirut, as does its contemporary, ITC Souvenir.

So really Bill, what controversy is there now over ITC Garamond? It's so little used today, the outcry by purists over ubiquitous travesty is long gone.

@David: Perhaps Nick is making a subtle joke...

I'd hope there is some wit in matching Lacan with ITC Garamond.
That's as good a starting point for a journal design as any -- whether it results in a success is for the typographer to work out.
I'm not prejudiced against Lacan, or ITC Garamond if one must have a Garamond, although of course an original new typeface would be better.

@Nick: whether it results in a success is for the typographer to work out.

I guess it's true that "Great artists suffer for the people." But I'm holding out for your second suggestion.

Interesting thread. Here's my two cents -

Since the common opinion about ITC Garamond is that it works well as a display face, not so much as a text face, Nick Shinn's suggestion of using Tony Stan's typeface seemed to me more like a cultural taunt - something like reviving a typical late Seventies typeface (an era focused on postmodernism / humanities / cultural studies / fascination for European philosophy) for a magazine written by Lacan oriented psychiatrists, than a *real* typographical proposal. But maybe that was just my impression.

If I had to set a magazine like this in a Garamond, I would choose Adobe Garamond Pro, set in two columns and with a very tight leading. Other suggestions of contemporary serifs based on Garamond shapes are Epic by TypeTrust and Augereau by George Abrams.

Another contemporary rendition of the Garamond lineage comes to mind: Montrachet by Lars Bergquist, also available with its display companion Monteverdi in a cheaper package:

http://www.fountaintype.com/typefaces/montrachet
http://www.fountaintype.com/typefaces/monteverdi
http://www.fountaintype.com/packages/4-mountaineer-kit

Since the common opinion about ITC Garamond is that it works well as a display face, not so much as a text face, Nick Shinn's suggestion of using Tony Stan's typeface seemed to me more like a cultural taunt ... than a *real* typographical proposal.

Certainly, my suggestion may be taken as a taunt to the codgers who can't see past their own reality, but I am dead serious about it.
If there is any merit in taking the tone of this document from Lacan, it must be wrong to opt for a dreary "classic" typeface.

Having said that, I must admit to not having read his essay on Garamond.
Has anybody here?

Thanks for the various interesting comments that make this tread a very good learning experience.

@Freiberger
thanks 1000 for the new file in Indesign. I could open fine and started playing around with some different Garamond cuts that i have to check them how that might look. By the way, these psychiatric do not use much formulas and numbers. They are more on the theoretical side.

@charles_e
I might give it a try to Sabon as well. I didn't got why did you have so much trouble to make Stempel Garamond to work right?

@archaica
"Perhaps Nick is making a subtle joke, hinting that Lacan, like ITC Garamond, hasn't been taken seriously since the 70s or 80s...."

I happen to work closely with a lot of people from the psychoanalytical profession and intellectuals and Lacan is well respected in these European circles. I don't know too much about how is Lacan consider in the US were Behavioral Psychology is king.

On another subject i am designer formed on the Modernism School ideals and love its attitude toward design matters. I feel that Post Modernism (not in film or writing but definitely in graphic design and architecture like David Carson or Robert Venturi) is mostly vacuous to me. Post Moderns look to me like the rebellious adolescents sons of Modernist Parents who have no sense of direction and very little legacy. Just a passing stage as adolescence finally is. Too radical for political correctness? maybe right.

@Nick Shinn
You have many interesting thoughts besides the typographic field. I am not quite sure i understood all of your reasoning when you say

"If there is any merit in taking the tone of this document from Lacan, it must be wrong to opt for a dreary "classic" typeface."

I do like your concept on "That's as good a starting point for a journal design as any". The talented musician and producer Brian Eno -who you would not think creativity could be an issue- has this cards named Oblique Strategies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies

to pull out in case of creativity stagnant an rare input to search for the unexpected results.

I'm not aware of any essay by Lacan "on Garamond," but he may mention it in passing in his Écrits. See, especially, Section I: Le Sens de la lettre. But he is discussing the Letter as some sort of (impenetrable) metaphor for unconscious being the Seat of language. I don't think it has anything to do with Garamond, specifically.

If there is, in fact, anything by Lacan specifically dealing with a typeface called Garamond, I would be quite surprised.

But, hey, all the more reason...

Lacan mentions Garamond only once in his Écrits, in Seminar 5, page 501, in L'instance de la lettre dans l'inconscient (The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious):

::: Or la structure du signifiant est, comme on le dit communément du langage, qu'il soit articulé.

Ceci veut dire que ses unités, d'où qu'on parte pour dessiner leurs empiétements réciproques et leurs englobements croissants, sont soumises à la double condition de se réduire à des éléments différentiels derniers et de les composer selon les lois d'un ordre fermé.

Ces éléments, découverte décisive de la linguistique, sont les phonèmes où il ne faut chercher aucune constance phonétique dans la variabilité modulatoire où s'applique ce terme, mais le système synchronique des couplages différentiels, nécessaires au discerne­ment des vocables dans une langue donnée. Par quoi l'on voit qu'un élément essentiel dans la parole elle-même était prédestiné à se couler dans les caractères mobiles qui, Didots ou Garamonds se pressant dans les bas-de-casse, présentifient valablement ce que nous appelons la lettte, à savoir. la structure essentiellement localisée du signifiant.

-

::: Now the structure of the signifier is, as is commonly said of language, that it is articulated.

This means that its units-no matter where one begins in tracing out their reciprocal encroachments and expanding inclusions-are subject to the twofold condition of being reduced to ultimate differential elements and of combining the latter according to the laws of a closed order.

These elements, the decisive discovery oflinguistics, arephonemes; we must not look for anyphonetic constancy in the modulatory variability to which this term applies. but rather for the synchronic system of differential couplings that are necessary to discern vocables in a given language. This allows us to see that an essential element in speech itself was predestined to flow into moveable type which, in Didots or Garamonds squeezing into lower-cases, renders validly present what I call the "letter"-namely, the essentially local­ized structure of the signifier.

---

At least they're not insisting on a Didot.....