Designing in two registers

I spend my days in two registers. In one I set type: leading, measure, the quiet arithmetic of a grid. In the other I write code that trains models. For a long time I kept them apart. I no longer do.

Constraints made visible

A good page makes its constraints visible without announcing them. A margin that is the same width on every page tells you the designer decided. A results table with consistent decimals and aligned columns tells you the same about an experimenter.

Three things print taught me about tables

• Alignment is argument. If the numbers do not line up, the reader cannot compare them, and a comparison that cannot be made is not a result.
• White space is a unit of measure. Rules and gaps tell the eye where a group ends. Use fewer rules, then use them deliberately.
• Decide the one thing the page is for. A table can carry one claim well. Two claims need two tables.

And what research taught me about layout

In return, research gave me a habit that print designers sometimes lack: ablation. Remove the ornament and see whether the page still works. If it does, the ornament was decoration; if it does not, you have found a structural element and it deserves respect.

Take it out. Does anything break? If not, leave it out.

Why bother connecting them

Because both are crafts of attention. The layout decides what a reader sees first; the evaluation decides what a reader believes first. Both are quietly ethical, in the sense that the order you choose is a claim about what matters.