Thinking Out of the Book: Visual Language and Textual Form in the Design of ebooks

Abstract

This article focuses on a critical evaluation of the design of ebooks. In the post-digital era, the form of content of ebooks is still presented as a simple rendition of the books’ printed version. Over the past ten years or so, although e-readers have popularized reading on screens, digital technologies have made little progress in the design of texts on screens. The few business initiatives that dominate the market of e-readers tend to minimize the typographic quality of texts on screen to its basic components and merely promote the usability of e-reading devices. Interesting experimentations with the form of texts on screen are introduced by independent stakeholders showing possible future directions that could serve new modes of digital reading by empowering the principal function of typographic design, i.e., to promote the nature of texts and enable readers to create meaning.