André Miede’s Classic Thesis LaTeX style is a thing of beauty.

Things to like about it:

  • It’s damn elegant.
  • It’s inspired by Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style, which remains the most eloquent and convincing argument for attention to typography I’ve ever read.
  • Namecheck of the booktabs documentation (on why the tables don’t have vertical lines), which I’ve also tried to promote.
  • “And no: the lines are not too short.”
  • Sidenotes. (And footnotes. But sidenotes. Lovely.)
  • The author wants postcards. And asks that you send complaints/suggestions/questions on the postcards, not by email. Nice filter.

There’s also the Ars Classica package, which patches ClassicThesis for a slightly different look. That’s all in Italian, but the code is almost readable anyway (much more LaTeX than TeX) which is encouraging for the prospect of coming up with a patch myself.

Reckon I’ll be sending a postcard.