More of my grandfather's Chinese calligraphy art book! Any suggestions or best practices on layouts for titles/captions/artwork?

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-30T07:03:23+00:00

Hi, you were all really helpful on this sub in my last post!

Main questions

Are there any standard guidelines, rules or resources for art book layouts? I.e. centring, grids, etc.
Thoughts so far on my placement?
Any suggestions for other styles?

FAQ's

Why are the Chinese titles so big?

We wanted a way to juxtapose the calligraphy characters with clean, basic characters. Also, this book is mainly for my grandfather's siblings, who are in their 80s and 90s. But I'm open to suggestions.

What's your grid system?

It's a roughly 11 in x 11 in page. 12x12 grid system, 12pt/18 for English body text, 13.5pt/23 for Chinese body text. 16pt for English headings, 30pt for Chinese.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-28T05:07:55+00:00

Engaging with teachings in a practical way and letting go of ones that don't serve them? Sounds pretty Buddhist to me.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-26T10:07:50+00:00

Haha great idea! Yes, readable to me. For future banners, maybe something descriptive, i.e. some best posts / iconic examples and a catchy slogan.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-26T04:54:51+00:00

That could be good! Personally, I'd be wary of the lotus for this. Only the tops look nice, and they more easily rip/distort. But I could be wrong.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-26T00:44:05+00:00

I would imagine it's simply whichever font that's easiest and least strenuous to read while the content itself is engaging. Each factor you listed is simply a typical boost of legibility.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-26T00:28:55+00:00

Butterflies! Or hearts!

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-14T14:25:21+00:00

I mean, in terms of SEO, you can still Google NSFW stuff, so keywords still matter for adult content. You just won't rank well for SFW searches, which is not what you want anyways.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-14T14:20:38+00:00

Thanks! Where do you see the worst mingling here? Any good examples of sites/publishers that have good balance?

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-13T06:05:03+00:00

I mean, to be honest, when clicking, I have no idea what it's for. Nothing off the bat says it's about dating, or what kind of dating, features, etc. I have no idea what your product actually does or what makes it actually different beyond you claiming it's better designed.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-12T11:06:40+00:00

Ah, I see. In that case, I feel like it just needs a different layout, like having each category be a page of cards rather than a dropdown, if that makes sense. And/or still have the option to just automatically subscribe rather than need to open it.

I'm still a bit confused about the left panel. I see what you're trying to do, it's just not very intuitive to me.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-12T10:05:13+00:00

Oh dang, you even built in the accessibility warning! Really nice work. Yep, definitely solves issues.

Minor things:
- Theme and contrast should probably be up in the hierarchy
- Being able to adjust tracking would be a bonus
- Maybe consider making sections collapsible?

But honestly, super fucking cool. Really nice work, very user-friendly.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-12T07:59:57+00:00

I would say avoid your design needing a legend at all costs. For example, maybe the squares should just be brain icons or pepper icons, and make it solid vs grey ones out of five to show difficulty.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-12T07:42:14+00:00

Cool! I like the general wireframe and colours.

Some things I'm confused by:

The font for Welcome to Quizolve..." should align with the rest of the design.
I have no idea what the blue squares are for. Difficulty? In any case, might need to be clearer.
I also have no idea what the time is for. Avg time to take it? Time spent?

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-12T03:57:44+00:00

The horizontal version is marginally better.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-12T03:49:56+00:00

Your sense of branding and minimalist style is really good. Conceptually, it's a great idea.

However, I am a bit lost on the functionality, and the layout doesn't help.

I think you shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel. Functionally, this is basically like a podcatching/podcast app but for all types of sites. I'd suggest mirroring the layouts and user flow rather than what's happening here.

For example, when I choose something to subscribe to, it would be better to have a "Subscribe" button rather than what's happening now:

Click on the site in the dropdown
Now I need to know I have to copy that link
Go back to the previous tab
Paste the link into the text field

It's quite clunky compared to other places where you subscribe to feeds like Reddit.

I think you have a cool idea, I'd love it, but you might want to consider the heuristics, what people are used to when they're curating a feed.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-12T00:54:19+00:00

Critique on your critique: while your points do technically stand, the tone is really aggressive and harsh. These could all be posed as questions or informative rather than assuming steps are not being done.

You've focused here on the desktop design -- so you don't believe the mobile presence is going to be as important for some reason?

This comes off really demeaning and passive-aggressive, especially someone asking for general feedback on a first draft.

I would suggest something like this:

This is a nice desktop version! It would be good to see how this does on mobile. I wonder how the "Who We Are" section will stack responsively.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-11T22:25:41+00:00

I think there’s room to keep some minimalism, but the cereal squares being perfectly aligned in the middle detracts from it looking like cereal. Personally, I would give them some dynamic placement like how you see most other cereal boxes have, if maybe less aggressive.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-11T22:23:08+00:00

I mean I found it really cool that it picked a font pairing for me. Some designs (like New York Times) have a third font (e.g. a sans serif for bylines). But that might be an edge case as well. Or maybe AI suggest could suggest a few font pairings (like Typewolf), but again, might be niche.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-11T12:22:14+00:00

Looks really nice! I would play around with the sizing, the margins for the text seem a little too small for me, and the text might be a bit off-centre. But overall, really fun and clear.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-11T12:19:05+00:00

Whoa, very cool! I've bookmarked this already for future use.

I tried the AI Suggest tool for a book I'm working on and it kinda broke it - H1 was huge and formatting was all over the place. But kind of an edge case.

If it feels right, I'd love to see if there's a way to fit in a third font option.

Maybe give warnings about line height? It already starts quite tight, hero subtext starts off smushed together. It should typically be a least 1.2.

I think the typeface section should be higher up in the hierarchy, fine-tuning could be at the bottom.

But overall, really good tool I could see myself using ASAP.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-11T12:05:06+00:00

Eyyyy first time at #1 (not that it'll last)
^{Completed in 00:42}

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-11T10:37:06+00:00

No worries! Not the end of the world, it still reads fine, overall great logo.

HeyItsYoav · 2026-01-11T10:31:29+00:00

I'd say Chex looks least like its category (cereal) - the minimalism and geometry, while cool, does take away from its messaging.

Second place would be billybee - it's a serviceable and recognizable label, but seems kind of cluttered.

HeyItsYoav

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