Member mat… Posted October 18, 2002 Share Posted October 18, 2002 This topic was imported from the Typophile platform I want to learn about good type design, elegant type layout and a small amount of history. What books would you recommend? I live in London, England so have a wide access to various design bookshops. Please... I need inspiration! Matthew Link to comment
Member chr… Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 Ruari McLean's Manual of Typography gives a good history of typography and design and is a very practical book. The only caveat is that it only goes up to the 80s so the digital side of typography is not addressed. I also like Stop Stealing Sheep by Erik Spiekermann, it is a nicely illustrated introductory text. Link to comment
Member Joe… Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 Stop Stealing Sheep is in its second edition as of this past summer. (It is available in the US, but I'm not sure about the UK.) Link to comment
Member j75… Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 Every one talks about 'The Elements of Typographic Style' by Robert Bringhurst http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0881791326/qid=1042314873/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/026-8626606-6990000 Link to comment
Member mat… Posted January 12, 2003 Author Share Posted January 12, 2003 Yup, I read Stop Stealing Sheep. Good it was, too. I would recommend it to people who are interested in letters, whether or not they are typophiles. Link to comment
Member ano… Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 Bringhurst is (very) good. For advanced reading & typography I recommend "Detailtypografie" from Forssman and de Jong, (you can find it here, the german Amazon). It's in german, but it's got everything in there. There's also a book by Adobe Press that got some good reviews: The complete manual of typography, by Jim Felici. see it at amazon. I like Detailtypografie more tough... Link to comment
Member rca… Posted January 13, 2003 Share Posted January 13, 2003 I don't know this book you mention, Detailtypografie, but I recommend the similarly titled Detail in Typography, by Jost Hochuli (Compugraphic, 1987). It's instructive to the newbie and a pleasure to the veteran. It's out of print, but it does turn up now and then on the used-book services. I've recently bought a copy in English (the original is in German, of course). R Link to comment
Member nik… Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 you can find detailtypografie at amazon: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3874395685/qid=1042538030/sr=2-1/ref=sr_aps_prod_1_1/302-1473027-7508846 i read it too and its recommendable. Link to comment
Member nev… Posted April 26, 2003 Share Posted April 26, 2003 Yes, definitely Bringhurst! Link to comment
Member Mis… Posted May 15, 2003 Share Posted May 15, 2003 Don't forget to visit our Books List: http://typophile.com/books Link to comment
Member Mig… Posted May 18, 2003 Share Posted May 18, 2003 The non-designer's design book - Design and typographic principles for the visual novice by Robin Williams; a very nice and informal way to look at Typography and start using it correctly. In http://www.typebooks.org/ you'll find a complete typographic bibliography. Link to comment
Member jay… Posted June 9, 2003 Share Posted June 9, 2003 out of the five or so books on the subject <joke> bringhurst's book is good. i think stop stealing sheep is kind of weak. as far as books on letterforms my old teacher from art center has a book out called font's and logos which is very comprehensive. the authors name is doyald young. Link to comment
Member hra… Posted June 16, 2003 Share Posted June 16, 2003 To me Gill's little book is very serious. It puts type in the context of society, exposing some deeply-rooted problems. The fact that many people today might think it's "strange" is simply that we've been brainwashed into loving industrialization over the past 100 years. I think when Gill's book came out, there were a lot more people who "got it". According to the colophon*, "Essay" was in fact the first use of Joanna. And the later 1936 edition was set in foundry, not Monotype. * It has two: one on page 4 and one at the end. I'm not sure the first one can be called a "colophon". hhp Link to comment
Member Jem… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 i really love emil ruder's Typography you can get it on amazon but it's cheaper on YWFT... those are the nice hardcover versions... mine is older and paperback, but i love it. (did i mention i love it?) Link to comment
Member hra… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 > i really love emil ruder's Typography Really? The way it treats the three languages identically bothers me a lot, not least functionally: there are spots (like in some illustration captions) where you have to make an extra effort to know where to start reading. Way too much Modernism. hhp Link to comment
Member kei… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Type & typography by Phil Baines and Andrew Haslem is a great book for beginners as well as those with more experience. It approaches type first and foremost from the linguistic point of view in a section called 'function', then move onto 'form', where history and classification are discussed in great details. The third section is about the designing and manufacturing of type. The next section is titled 'Structure', where hierarchy, grid, and the fine points about setting type are covered. The last section is 'Conventions', the 'rules' of setting text type, if you will. The whole book is illustrated throughout with relevant and engaging examples, The main running text set in Swift in a large point size and 'sidebars' set in a smaller Meta that goes into more depth about each issue discussed. I highly recommend this book. I think it's one of the best, most comprehensive and least biased I've seen so far. It is quite a brilliant achievement: it has a lot of depth and students are going to like reading it because it actually looks so interesting. Along with Bringhurst, it's going to be required reading for my type class. Link to comment
Member Jem… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 > Really? really. i wasn't bothered by the extra languages... but then again i wasn't bothered by the german in the weingart book either. then again, i'm one of those people who aren't bothered by subtitles in films. (did i mention i wasn't bothered?) i'm getting out of hand ;) i found it very informative; it made sense to me. and i still go back to it every so often, as reference. Link to comment
Member kei… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Hrant, you're going to like this book. It's so post-modern :-P I love Phil Baines's work! Link to comment
Member mat… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 I must say, I quite like Ruder myself. But more as an artifact really - not as a current resource or how-to book or entry point for someone. I'm not one to say modernism didn't (doesn't) have its fair share of problems... Link to comment
Member hra… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 > Type & typography ... is quite a brilliant achievement I agree. Maybe the best single "textbook" out there. The only thing that bugs me is that they go to all that wonderful trouble of setting up typography with speech, writing and all, but... did you notice... nothing about how we actually read! :-/ The whole point, really. -- > i'm one of those people who aren't bothered by subtitles in films. I'm envious. I have a lot of trouble watching a foreign movie in a language I know because I can't help reading the subtitles. Same thing with the opera these days - those stinky surtitles - guys, you're supposed to know the story before you get there anyway, you know?! The point in opera is the delivery. And to me the only really good thing about DVDs is that you can turn the subtitles off. I even like watching foreign movies that I can't understand - they often make more sense that way. Like before I knew Spanish I enjoyed Mexican TV much more. And one time I was watching Ran, and I called the station yelling at them to turn of the subtitles... Now I'm getting out of hand... One thing I found definitely kind of innovative in Ruder's book is that page where they compare regular and irregular spacing of letters of different structures, with carefully selected words set large. That was sharp. hhp Link to comment
Member Jem… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 > And one time I was watching Ran, and I called the station yelling at them to turn of the subtitles... hahahaha! fantastic. Link to comment
Member kei… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Hrant, you're right, nothing on the reading process. :-( Link to comment
Member kei… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Ovink would be a good supplement to Baines. Link to comment
Member hra… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 > nothing on the reading process. Probably because that's a book by itself. But still, some stuff about saccades and such would've been nice. Ovink might be too heavy. BTW, speaking of video titling, I've always loved the Chinese tradition of freezing the action and showing a person's name in huge vertical letters, with a gong. To me that beautifully leverages the surreal nature of video. hhp Link to comment
Member hra… Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 That's definitely a great one. And fortunately bookfinder.com seems to show two copies currently available (for $50). Just be careful, Frutiger has at least one other book (also a good one, but not as good for type design) with a very similar title (and that one I think is still in print). hhp Link to comment
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