Reply To: Text on Spine

Jongware said:

The spine should be readable when the book is lying flat on its back, with the front up.

Am I correctly remembering that the German style is the other way around? (And do they have a logical reason, other than “It's been done like this fur years”?)

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There are only three German books on the shelf in here, and they all have the spine text upside down, so you're probably right. I did the same on the first book I ever laid out, and got all kinds of abuse for it. While the idea that the spine text should be the right way up when the book is lying face-up on the table has much to commend it, the German fashion has, too. If you're browsing a long bookshelf, reading the spines from top to bottom* (the way we normally read) involves reading from left to right, as normal. If the books have their spines printed non-German-wise, you have to either read bottom up or right to left, both of which feel uncomfortable to me.

*This is not easy to put in words. I imagine a very tall pile of books on its side, because I have my head tilted while browsing. And it seems most natural to read from the top of that pile to the bottom rather than vice versa.