Typography:
The Typography of the book “Essai sur l’architecture” by Marc Antoine Laugier is very strict. While the hedings for the Preface, the table of the chapters and the introduction are rather big compared to the main text, the heading for the chapters and the chapter titles, as well as the articles and the article titles are almost the same size like the rest of the font. The heading is always written in big letters, while the title of the Chapter and Article is written in italic font. The first letter of each Chapter and Article is bold and double the size of the other letters.
Each text page contains of the title “An Essay on Architecture” written in old font, the page number next to the title, the main text of the page and on the bottom right the first word of the next page.
The margins are kept very small, so most of the Page is filled with text, however the font size is rather big, so there are only 24 lines text on each page.
Illustrations and Symbols:
The book does not have any images, there is only one big drawing form Charles Dominique Eisen on the frontispiece which fills the whole page. It shows how nine men work and build on a primitive hut together. Then there is also a small drawing of a city above the Preface. Other than that, there are only some small symbols above every new Chapter and bigger symbols at the end of each chapter and article to fill the empty space of the page. While the drawing on the frontispiece is referenced in the bottom right, the small drawing above the preface and the small symbols are not referenced.
Reading:
The organisation of the text, the missing of images and the little symbols for aesthetic suggest that Laugiers Essay is more a handbook rather than an academic study.