Typography Books

The Complete Manual of Typography

Jim Felici

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Testimonials
"The ultimate typographic tool: a concise, beautiful book that pulls together everything you need to produce great typography."
--Frank Romano, RIT School of Print Media

"Clear and elegant...There's no better or more useful introduction to the whole craft of typography."
--Roger Black, Danilo Black, Inc.

"All you've always wanted to know about type and typography but never dared to ask. Jim Felici brings together a vast amount of knowledge in this book. Must-have!"
--Erik Spiekermann, author, Stop Stealing Sheep (and Find Out How Type Works)

This book is about how type should look and how to make it look that way; in other words, how to set type like a professional. It releases the craft knowledge that used to reside almost exclusively in the heads of people working in type shops. The shops are gone, the technologies have changed, but the goal remains the same. This book explains in very practical terms how to use today's computerized tools to achieve that secret of good design: well-set type.

Beautifully designed and richly illustrated, The Complete Manual of Typography is an essential reference for anyone who works with type. Designers, print production professionals, and corporate communications managers can go straight to the index to find focused answers to specific questions, while educators and students can read it as a textbook from cover to cover. You'll find:

• History, basic concepts, and anatomy of good typography, concisely presented and indexed for quick reference by busy professionals.
• Straight-ahead instructions for how to manage fonts, handle corrupted or missing fonts, and find the characters you need.
• Clear, useful explanations of what makes good type good (and bad type bad) .
• Detailed guidance on controlling the fundamentals of type, including measure, point size, leading, kerning, and hyphenation and justification.
• Practical advice on how to fix and avoid composition problems such as loose lines, bad rags, widows and orphans.
• Hard-to-find rules for managing indents and alignments, skews, wraps, expert-set characters, and tables.
• Scores of workarounds that show how to wring good type out of uncooperative word-processing and layout programs.

Exploring Typography (Design Exploration Series)

Tova Rabinowitz

Amazon Price: $33.99 List Price: $53.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: OnWord Press Amazon Marketplace: 55 new & used starting at $13.95

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Exploring Typography 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Thomson Delmar Learning just sent me the book Exploring Typography to review for use in my classroom. I think it is one of the best on the subject and know it will be adopted for use in my classes. I teach at an independent high school in Vermont and also at the state college near by. The book is well organized and the illustrations are great. It must have taken a lot of effort and time to write; I am always in awe of someone that can bring light to a difficult and confusing subject such as typography....great book!!!

Editorial Review:

What do designers need to know about typography? The answer can be found in this heavily illustrated book that examines the use of type in visual communications. Exploring Typography takes a simple and concise approach to the principles of typography giving readers a thorough understanding of the subject. The well-organized coverage begins with a brief history of type and a survey of how type is classified. Readers then learn about the physical components of letters and the rules of legibility, readability, and style. Subsequent chapters survey the creative use of emphasis, designing effective layouts, using grids, and developing original type styles. Finally, the author examines new challenges in type while introducing terminology and concepts relevant to designing with type in a digital environment.

Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design

Timothy Samara

List Price: $40.00 By: Rockport Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $22.84

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

a real treat 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I highly recommend all of Timothy Samara's books for budding designers to keep on their bookshelf.

All you need... 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

... to know about Type in an easy and comprehensive way lies on these pages. I own this book for almost a year and each time i flip it's pages I'm still amazed. Sure it looks kind of basic and introductory to the world of type, but as I said in the beginning: This is all you really need. Once you buy this book the rest of them will be sort of "been there, done that"

Editorial Review:

The Typography Workbook is the second in Rockport?s popular Workbook series, practical and inspirational workbooks that cover all the fundamental areas of the graphic design business. This book presents an abundance of information on type?the cornerstone of graphic design?succinctly and to the point, so that designers can get the information they need quickly and easily.

Whereas many other books on type are either very technical or showcase oriented, this book offers the reader ideas and inspiration through hundreds of real-life projects with well-crafted type usage that have succeeded, as well as complete and hardworking content including choosing fonts, sizes, and colors; incorporating text and illustrations; avoiding common mistakes in text usage; teaching rules to live (and work) by, and pointing out hints on when to break them.

Typography: Formation +Transformation

Willi Kunz

Amazon Price: $84.00 List Price: $105.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Arthur Niggli Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $62.99

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Great Web Typography

Wendy Peck

Amazon Price: $23.09 List Price: $34.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $1.52

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Relevant only to beginners, but still not fun to read 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The problem with Great Web Typography is that it claims to be for all users, beginner to advanced. I consider myself an intermediate to advanced CSS user with an intermediate knowledge of typography, and I was bored. The book moves very slowly through the benefits of CSS and the basics of CSS, both of which can be learned through ten minutes of reading on the internet, for free.

I can find a basics book fun to read, but I found the style of Great Web Typography frustrating. Generally, I have no problem with differences in writing style, as long as the style is not distracting. But, the writing here contains an annoying weight to it, sometimes making me wonder why Peck included a particular sentence. For example, at the end of a cautionary blurb about graphic text, Peck drops this useless nugget of wisdom, "Learning to create text with no bounds does not give you license to avoid common sense." (139) I'm not sure what that means, as Peck doesn't elaborate, and it made me think she only included it because it sounds catchy.

This bloated style makes reading the book a chore, but even worse than the style are the misspellings, like something is "in an accessable area" (37) or something "is used in a supporting roll" (120). These gaffes become outright funny when Peck advises you to watch your spelling. Even Microsoft Word can catch that first one.

Probably the most frustrating part of this book is how far the visual examples are from the text. When the text mentions a visual example, you have to leave the text, find the example (which is sometimes on the bottom of the page, sometimes on the side of the page, and occasionally, on a different page), view the example, and then find where you left off in the text. This random layout shows a surprising ignorance of how people read a book.

All these things built up, and after getting through half of this book, I returned it.

Editorial Review:

* Demystifies Web typography by revealing the secrets of professional developers!
* Shows how to find, select and implement Web typography that will give any site a slick, professional look!
* Demonstrates how to use Cascading Style Sheets and other technologies to control the way type appears on any browser!
* Describes how to make beautifully design sites download super-fast.
* Shows how to set type that wraps around images and other objects on the page.
* Provides professional secrets for increasing type legibility.
* Provides recipes for type special effects that will "wow" site visitors and ensure that they come back for more!
* Includes real-world case studies and examples from top companies.
* Includes interviews with top Web design experts and Web type gurus.

The Complete Guide to Digital Type: Creative Use of Typography in the Digital Arts

Andy Ellison

Amazon Price: $5.99 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Collins Design Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $5.98

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Editorial Review:

This comprehensive guide to creating and using digital type, both in print and for the web, is an essential reference for students and practicing designers alike. An introduction offers a brief history and discusses font classification, software, and the ways in which the computer has revolutionized typography. A section on good typographic practice provides expert advice on issues such as legibility, contrast, size, line length, line spacing, and justification, as well as guidance on how to lay out type and construct grids.

Step-by-step explanations are provided for creating a wide range of type effects: drop shadows, wood block style, bevel and emboss, gradients, fading type, type on curves, perforated type, and more. Designing type for the screen presents a new set of challenges and topics covered include editable HTML, type as an image, and how to choose fonts, type size, and color. A chapter on creating your own fonts discusses how to get the most out of industry -- standard software -- Fontographer and FontLab -- and describes how to build up letterforms and refine them in Photoshop or Illustrator. Numerous creative approaches to font design discussed here include amending existing typefaces, combining typefaces, and creating fonts out of found objects.

With clear, authoritative text and over 400 diagrams and full-color illustrations, The Complete Guide to Digital Type will inform and inspire designers of all levels of experience.

Fonts & Logos: Font Analysis, Logotype Design, Typography, Type Comparison

Doyald Young

List Price: $65.00 By: Delphi Pub Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $51.30

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Required reading for designers and design students 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

Fonts & Logos is required reading for any student or designer, whether newcomer or experienced, who needs to develop a logo for assignment, client or boss. Fonts & Logos is a major achievement, a 5 pound, 385-page, 9 by 12-inch labor of love. Fonts & Logos offers a book length equivalent of a yearlong college-level class delivered by one of the world's leading logo designers.

Fonts & Logos describes, and in large, annotated illustrations shows, the process by which the characters (or glyphs) of an ordinary alphabet are converted into an attractive, memorable logotype representing a firm's image. One of the book's strengths is the way it not only shows the original alphabet as well as the final logo, but it also shows rejected alternatives and describes some of the reasons the alternatives were rejected or didn't work as well as the final choice. There's magic in comparing a "straight" alphabet with the resulting logo as well as understanding the subtle changes that often transform everyday characters into memorable logos.

In addition to learning by "looking over the shoulder" of an experienced logo designer, Fonts & Logos will enhance the reader's knowledge of, and appreciation for, the subtleties of type design. Large specimens (enlargements of characters often four inches tall) reveal the subtleties that separate one typeface design from another and the craftsmanship that type designers engage in to create attractive, easy-to-read typeface designs. At large size, the details of the typefaces and resulting logos emerge with power and strength....

For the price of one or two "everyday" (i.e. discardable) books, students and designers can invest in a finely-produced book they will likely keep forever.If you're serious about your design career, make this your "investment of the week."

Editorial Review:

Font & Logos provides both an overview of typography and a technical guide for decisions about legibility, font design, the compatibility of type styles, and the function of type within logos. Anyone who loves letters will delight in the myriad forms that appear in the book's diagrams and exemplars

EXPERIMENTAL TYPOGRAPHY (Working With Computer Type , No 4)

Rob Carter

List Price: $35.00 By: Rotovision Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $7.85

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Impressive 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Designers wishing to educate / RE-educate themselves in typography, as it relates to the digital realm, would find this book an invaluable resource. The first chapter does a great job of establishing the traditional "rules" of typography. As the author simply states, "Rules must be understood before they can be broken". Visual examples corresponding with each rule help demonstate the Do's and Dont's of how to render type so that the designer can effectively communicate his/her message. Once covered, the remaining chapters offer wonderful examples of how to alter type in new and unusual ways. Many go a step further to explain what emotional responses can occur by using type in unconventional ways. The final section includes galleries of digital print work, many illustrating the theories from earlier chapters.

The only minor flaw with the book is that it should have included a glossary of typography terms. Those who might be new to typography or "a bit rusty" are bound to trip a little while reading the through first chapter.

Whether you are an Amateur or Seasoned Professional, this book should be a welcome addition to your library.

Editorial Review:

Using desktop computers, graphic designers have vigorously plunged into the waters of typographic experimentation, irrevocably altering the way they approach and translate ideas into visual form. This book offers a range of typographic experiments by leading graphic design professionals and advanced students. Each project is discussed in detail, revealing both methods and rationale. 1,600 illustrations.

Typography 23: Annual of the Type Directors Club (Typography) (Typography)

List Price: $59.95 By: Watson-Guptill Publications Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $7.95

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Editorial Review:

Typography 23, the only annual devoted exclusively to typography, presents the finest work in this field for 2001. Selected from approximately 2,500 international submissions, the 158 winning designs displayed in this reference are models of excellence and innovation in the use of type. Winners of this latest competition come from books, magazines, corporate identities, logotypes, stationery, annual reports, video and web graphics, and posters. Special indices list full information on the typefaces used, the creative team, and winners of Judges' Choice awards. Of course, each entry is displayed in vibrant color on premium paper.

Dimensional Typography:: Words in Space: Kiosk Report #1 (Kiosk Report)

J. Abbott Miller

Amazon Price: $15.96 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Princeton Architectural Press Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $3.02

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Dimensional Typography in Eye Magazine 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

A review and summary of Dimensional Typography can be seen in the winter issue of Eye Magazine , Vol. 6, no. 23. The "report" was written by Andrea Codrington, a frequent contributor to Eye, I.D., and Print Magazines

Editorial Review:

Today's computer technologies have allowed for the creation of new spaces for typographic communication. This collection of drawings, photographs,?and typefaces explores some of the ideas that might govern the logic of?three-dimensional type. It presents and analyzes letterforms based on both?traditional and contemporary typefaces, freely mixing historical?references and futuristic aspirations. Author J. Abbott Miller considers?the ways in which letters have become three-dimensional in certain genres?such as signage, and discusses how typefaces have incorporated the?illusion of dimensionality on the printed page.?

?Dimensional Typography is the first title in our new series?Kiosk Reports. Edited by J. Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton, this?inexpensive, small-format line of books will explore current ideas on?graphic design, much as our Pamphlet Architecture series does for?architecture.