Bringhurst's advice about vertical motion doesn't really apply to web pages.<p>Bringhurst was writing about <i>bound</i> books with text on facing pages. That advice is specifically aimed towards aligning the bottoms of facing pages, aligning lines of text on facing pages, and aligning lines of text on pages printed back-to-back. If you don't have multiple columns of body text (margin text uses different rules), and you aren't having your text printed back-to-back on semi-translucent paper, then the vertical motion rule doesn't apply.<p>People try so hard to follow this rule in web pages, but they just end up creating web pages that have way too much unnecessary spacing between things. This article is a good example; it has way too much spacing between headings and the paragraphs they introduce. It's easy to find more extreme cases on other sites.<p>This is section 2.2.2 of "The Elements of Typographic Style" (page 37 in version 3.1 of the book).