Setting the press...
Issue 001 — The Depth Number
Scroll, and the layers slide out of register. A flat page borrows the thickness of a printed spread.
Begin readingDepth is hierarchy. Background layers move least and read as far away; foreground moves most and leads the eye. Never more than three tiers, or the page turns muddy.
Giant faint numerals and washes. Moves least — the eye reads it as far away.
Rules, captions, secondary marks. A middle plane that ties fore and back together.
Rarely the body text itself — accents that lead the scroll and settle last.
Foreground text
translate3d(0, progress × 0.30, 0)
A sticky image pins to the viewport while the column beside it keeps scrolling — the mesh of a magazine spread, rebuilt for the screen.
As you scroll, this column slides past a pinned plate. The eye keeps its anchor while the argument advances — the reader never loses the picture.
When the text runs out, the sticky plate lets go and the next spread takes over. The hand-off is the rhythm of the whole layout.
Image and text interlock rather than sit in separate blocks. That mesh is what separates an editorial layout from a landing page.
The motion means nothing if the page can't be read. Serif display, a comfortable measure, drop caps and chapter numbers carry the whole thing when the scrolling stops.
The measure is capped near sixty-eight characters, the line-height opened to a comfortable one-point-seven-five, and the first letter dropped four lines into the paragraph in brick red. None of it depends on the parallax. Turn the motion off entirely and the page still reads like a printed feature — which is exactly the test a good editorial layout has to pass.
Depth is a garnish. Structure is the meal. The chapter numbers, the top rules, the hanging accent color — these are the magazine’s grammar, and they do the real work of pacing a long read.
Scrolling is turning pages, and depth is the fourth dimension of the layout.
No cold whites, no second accent. The paper is warm, the ink is near-black, and brick red appears only where the reader should look.
Sharp edges, serif labels, brick underlines. Every control looks like it belongs in a printed publication.