tion in appearance to black and white or to the colors of the
spectrum. Embodying these terms in an example: We may specify a mass
square in shape, having an area of four square inches, and being gray
in tone. These three characteristics, then, will identify and describe
any mass.

In printing, the successive lines of type which form a paragraph, block,
or connected series of paragraphs or blocks, are considered as a mass.
An initial letter may be another mass; a head-band still another; and
ornaments or illustrations may form other masses. All must be considered
as mass elements in the design of the page, with rule borders as
surrounding lines, or heavier designed borders as surrounding masses.

Thus all the component parts of the printed page are reduced to elements
or materials of design, and with these materials an arrangement is to be
made, for the sake of beauty, which will have the qualities of harmony,
balance, proportion, and rhythm.

_The Qualities of Design_

The dictionary defines _harmony_, in art, as "a normal state of
completeness in the relation of things to each other." This "state of
completeness" in a harmonious scheme is such that we have no desire to
change or modify any detail or characteristic.

_Balance_ is defined as "the state of being in equilibrium." In design
this refers to the equilibrium or balance of attraction to the eye
between the various masses.

_Proportion_ is "the comparative relation of one thing to another" with
respect to size.

_Rhythm_, in design, "is a movement characterized by regular recurrence
of accent."

Let us discover the embodiment of these qualities of design with a
simple experiment. Cut from black, dark gray, and light gray cover paper
a miscellaneous assortment of small pieces as shown in Fig. 3. This
group of squares, oblongs, triangles, diamonds, circles, and whatnot
has none of the qualities of design as it appears in Fig. 3.

[Illustration: Fig. 3. A group of miscellaneous masses having various
measures, shapes, and tones. Arranged without thought of design.]

Choose from Fig. 3 certain pieces which seem to have a definite
similarity of shape. Combine them with another rectangle, as in Fig. 4,
and the result is certainly more orderly and pleasing than the unrelated
tangle in Fig. 3. In Fig. 4 we have developed the quality of _shape
harmony_.

But we note that in spite of the harmony of shapes in Fig. 4 some of the
pieces of paper seem undul