The spatial dimension of democracy Since the time of the Greeks, democracy has been understood to have a spatial dimension and so, by extension, an element of scale. Plato measured the polis, the unit of democratic citizenship, at five hundred citizens, an extremely tractable size for a community that seeks to express itself through direct engagement. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan democracypoliticscommunity
What kind of world it's going to be The wonderful thing about living in a world of our own creation is that we get to choose what kind of world it's going to be—at least in principle. But the promise is meaningful only if a broad enough "we" can be engaged in the process. At present, mechanisms and democratic institutions for making collective decisions about the deployment of technology are hopelessly cumbersome. How can anyone make a sensible choice without being able to weigh one alternative against another? Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape democracypoliticsclimatechoice
A state of energetic repose Read the text before designing it. Discover the outer logic of the typography in the inner logic of the text. Make the visible relationship between the text and other elements (photographs, captions, tables, diagrams, notes) a reflection of their real relationship. Give full typographic attention even to incidental details. Invite the reader into the text. Reveal the tenor and meaning of the text. Clarify the structure and the order of the text. Link the text with other existing elements. Induce a state of energetic repose, which is the ideal condition for reading. Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style The inner nature of material typography