Looks Can Deceive
I received “One Year of White Pages” as a gift for Christmas. Each month is identified by corresponding dots aligned in a vertical row. I appreciated the simple and elegant design solution until the month of June arrived. It was in this fifth month of the year that the system of counting failed to work. From this point on, each dot had to be counted to determine which month it was. The problem compounded in October when the quantity of dots for the remaining three months of the year looked exactly the same.
The problem is that after the first dot, our eyes begin to see in groups but only to the number three. When the number of dots surpasses this we are forced to count each dot individually. Any attempt to group the larger rows into sets of three becomes sabotaged by the optical illusion created from the even spacing between the dots.
The equal spacing between the dots, however, is not the main problem. I have proposed two alternative design systems that would facilitate counting the correct month.