PS I realise there are other posts regarding ’books for newbies’, ’best books on typography’ and, of course, the ’Typographic Triumvirate’. But I’m really after the name of your first book, not your/the best.

Answers on a postcard!

Erik Spiekermann and EM Ginger’s Stop stealing sheep and find out how type works.

Basic Typography: A Design Manual by James Craig.
Required reading before I began college – does exactly what it says on the tin! Certainly not one for igniting inspirado.

Thanks Dan and Conor.

> Certainly not one for igniting inspirado

No – understandably.

As a matter of interest, when you do offer the name of your first book, it would be great if, like Conor, you could offer a few words about its impact on you and your peers.

Did many of your peers buy/read/borrow the same book?
What was the general class consensus?
Were you in a minority?
Did it inspire you to read more? Or did it bring on a yawn?

I believe I bought both Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style and Craig’s Designing with Type at the same time in the RISD bookstore, but I only take one with me wherever I go. Guess which one ;-) .

EDIT: Per Ryan’s request, I’ll make it more explicit. I had been into type for several months before buying Bringhurst, but as soon as I sat down with it, I knew I was passionate about what it detailed. Just one of those classics (if I can call it that after only two years). Craig was certainly not bad, but I read it after reading most of Bringhurst, and there wasn’t too much new information in there. Some practical knowledge, though, and a better introduction to identifying common typefaces than Bringhurst.

Stop stealing sheep and find out how type works was my first too.

The first book that I bought on typography was in 1967, “Typographie” by Emil Ruder. It was not available until a year after I graduated from design school but my typography professor was a student of Ruder so his teachings were part of our curriculum before the book was published.

ChrisL

Either Bringhurst or S. Carter’s Twentieth-Century Type Designers — can’t remember which.

Stop Stealing Sheep.

In addition to this post, I’d like to post the same question on another forum for designers, which isn’t so obviously for typophiles.
Can anyone recommend such a forum?

Types of Typefaces (1967) by J. Ben Lieberman.

I don’t remember the exact title, but it was a grim technical textbook on how-to’s. I still remember my excitement at first letterspacing and leading!

Type and Typography: The Designer’s Type Book, Revised Edition by Ben Rosen

I had jobs though before school so I had (and still do) a Linofilm by Typographics sample book.

Ursache und Wirkung: ein typografischer Roman (1984) by Erik Spiekermann

Hans Peter Willberg, Friedrich Forssman: Erste Hilfe in Typografie. Ratgeber für Gestaltung mit Schrift

I got my one 1972 and I wrote already about it.
May be you guys cannot read it, because its written in german. Please forgive me that I’m too tired to tranlate it now — but: there is a picture included:

http://www.bleisetzer.de/cms/front_content.php?idcat=58&idart=804

Georg
_______________________________________________
„Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben...“

In 1973, I had just gotten my journeyman’s card as a hot-metal hand compositor. I had worked as an apprentice comp for 5 years. Though I had never read anything about “typography,” I was excited about setting type for books. That summer I spent 5 weeks at the Vermont farm of the great type teacher Ray Nash. I read both volumes of Updike’s “Printing Types” and talked with Ray and the handful of other students about what I had read.

When I had time I watched the Watergate hearings on TV.

Discovering the richness of typography in Updike made me go back to college, finish the final semester for a BA in English, and then commit to becoming a typographer. Here I yam, 35 years later.

powers

35 years, Will...
Tell me: Is this real? What is real?? Am I real???
Oh Jeeee... 35 years.

Georg
_______________________________________________
„Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben...“

Tschichold’s Meisterbuch der Schrift, and a bit later The Form of the Book. Then at university, yet another Tschichold. He did have quite an impact, but meanwhile I have more sympathy for less dogmatic authors like Paul Renner. No idea why I prefer dead authors, though ...

It’s funny to see that the books indicate how old its readers are. Stop Stealing Sheep readers must be the younger Typophilers.  :D

bleisetzer — but: there is a picture included

Nice, I have one too!

I don’t remember which order they came in, but the required reading when I was studying type and design in college in the mid-1970s was:

Typography, by Emil Ruder
Asymmetric Typography, by Jan Tschichold
Design With Type, by Carl Dair

The TeXBook, by Donald Knuth.

Not really a general typography book, being specifically for the typesetting of mathematics, but it carried a lot of typographic information.

>Stop Stealing Sheep readers must be the younger Typophilers.

Hmmm. But not so young. Wasn’t the book first published in 1991 or 1992? (I bought mine albeit much later, in 1998…)

I honestly can’t remember for certain, but I think it was Stop Stealing Sheep. Though the first book I bought of my own accord was Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style.

Bringhurst.

I don’t recall there being any typography books on the curriculum of my Foundation course or Dip.AD (Fine Art), in the early ’70s in the UK. So “my” first book about typography actually belongs to my wife, who bought it when she was studying art at the University of Manitoba.

I’ve always been impressed with the asymmetric application of the price stickers, and their red bars which echo the bar on the dust jacket!

Now that’s a bullet.

Nick is so damned hardcore.

But now that I think about it (for the first time, it would seem), the grey sticker covers up the asymmetricality of the author line.

But Nick, 6 bucks for a book is a real deal :-)

ChrisL

Elements of typographic style. i jumped in on the deep end...

There was a little thing I picked up in the late 1980s:
The Mac is not a Typewriter
Not so much a typography book, but it was enough to break me of typewriter habits before I got out of high school.

Typographic Design: Form and Communication, by Carter, Day and Meggs

Not the most exciting of books, but solid. 95% of the class switched from print design to web design after Typography 101 and this book :)

95% of the class switched from print design to web design after Typography 101 and this book :)

That book scared the living shit out of me during sophomore year. Now I have two copies.

I, unfortunately, sold it back to the school bookstore.

But the book set me on a path. I never intended on getting interested in type or typography. I went to school for photography, but our school’s Visual Communications: Photography program required a class in basic typography.

After that first class that everyone else dropped, I was hooked :)

bringhurst, 20th century type, stop stealing sheep, and robin kinross’ classic modern typography — which i am quite surprised no one has yet mentioned — it’s crucial.

Bringhurst, and thinking with type.

I haven’t gone to university, college or an apprenticeship. The first typography book I read was The Elements of Typographic Style.

Mine were also Stop Stealing Sheep & The Elements of Typographic Style.

I became interested in type* long after I’d graduated college. I’ve done a lot of internet research & went to TypeCon in 2006, but my first real typography book is “About Alphabets” by Zapf, which I read last year. Since then, I’ve gotten a bunch from the library. I’m still quite new to it all, though.

*I’ve loved type since I was a little kid - I’d pore over books from the library on “Circus Letters” and spend hours retraining my handwriting to be big or small or have two-story a’s, etc. But I didn’t know other people liked this and kind of lost track of it until a few years ago.

Excellent — don’t stop! With any luck I’ll get the feedback from everyone on Typophile.com.
Dan is right about Stop Stealing Sheep — I have the first English paperback edition that was published in 1993.

As a matter of interest: is anyone here still studying, or in some way in touch with current design students? Do you know what is being read Now by beginners? I spoke to a first year student last weekend who mentioned Type & Typography, by Baines & Haslam, About Face by David Jury and, obviously, one of Carson’s books.

• What are the main titles now being read by complete beginners?
• Perhaps Elements of Typographic Style is a bit heavy for a beginner, or do you disagree?
• Do you think many graphic design students read First Principles of Typography by Stanley Morison(?) or are such books now considered irrelevant by beginners?

Back in the beginnings of my education, I always had the opinion that anything printed more than 10 years before wasn’t worth reading!

anything printed more than 10 years before wasn’t worth reading!

Students would take to Morison if he were reprinted in Helvetica.

Before setting my first book I bought Bringhurst and John Kane’s A Type Primer simultaneously. Kane’s book isn’t bad, but it didn’t change my life. Bringhurst did (obviously).

Maybe that’s true Nick. Please elaborate.

:-)

A Type Primer by John Kane.

The first book I got was inPrint by Alex Brown. It really is a great introductory book for those who don’t want to start at the deep end.

Some people start with the (Bringhurst) Bible; others start with bible stories.

ISBN 0823025446; out of print; you can find used copies dirt cheap, unlike Dowding’s Finer Points which sells for about $80.

Perhaps Elements of Typographic Style is a bit heavy for a beginner, or do you disagree?

It was a touchstone for me. When I was in school (not a very good design school) it was all backlash and ’70s freedom. There was very little taught about classic geometry and structure. Everything was stagnant and the Mac was about to hit. Elements was the real deal—it had all the knowledge my teachers didn’t have, which is exactly what I wanted. I think the book works as a read, but also a great reference. I still look things up in it all the time.

I became interested in type looking at specimens used by my parents. :) But the first real book was “Designer’s Guide To Typography”, edited by Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel and John Fennell [1991] . It is the special annual edition of Step-By-Step Graphics magazine.

A Type Primer by John Kane.

It should be everyone’s first. Reading Kane cleared up all the confusion I was left with after reading the usual stuff.

Perhaps Elements of Typographic Style is a bit heavy for a beginner, or do you disagree?

I tried reading it early on and was really confused as to why my professor wanted me reading all this pretentious nonsense that no editing department would ever go with. I often use it as a reference, particularly for terminology, but as a student I find the advice in it is usually too impractical to be of much real value. Professors who insist we read Bringhurst will usually see our work as boring, dated, or stuffy if we put the ideas into practice. And all three of my design jobs have explicitly stated not to follow Bringhurst.

Well, it is not my first type book, but Edmund C. Arnold was my hero in my college days back in the 70s. He wrote several books about newspaper design during the 50s and 60s. At that time I thought I wanted to be a reporter ... turns out I really wanted to design newspapers, not write for them.

Gerald Unger’s “About Reading” is a good blend. Batty’s “Type & Typography”, and AtypI’s “Language, Culture, Type” are worthy reads, too.

ChrisL

Do you mean “Ink on Paper” Don?

ChrisL

That could be one, Chris. I seem to remember two or three books by him in the Niagara College library back in the early 70s.

I too started at the deep end with Bringhurst.
It was very interesting, but after that I needed something lighter - so my next was Stop Stealing Sheep.
:-)

Since then I have aquired and read quite a few books about Typography - some favourites:
Logo, Font & Lettering Bible - Leslie Cabarga
Counterpunch - Fred Smeijers
Designing Type - Karen Cheng
...
But the best bit is actually _working_ with fonts!
:-)

Don, Arnold’s “Ink on Paper” was the book used often in journalism schools in those years for editors and aimed mostly at newspaper editors.

ChrisL

I showed the Logo, Font & Lettering Bible to one of my teachers who was about to start teaching the Design 101 classes after some staff turnover, and he loved it. He’s the grizzled oldschool graphics guy who polishes the students from beginners to advanced, but he’s always complaining that he’s getting students who managed to go through two typography courses without even a basic understanding of typography.

He’s also the teacher who goes the most into logo conceptualization and design, so Cabarga’s book was a big hit with him. He said he was contemplating using that book as the Design 101 textbook. I wouldn’t have complained myself.

Planck’s Typographic specimen, from my fathers hot metal shop… I was 4 or 5, smell the lead! I still use it for inspiration today.

The Truth shall set you free

EoTS is definitely too heavy to just throw in a new student’s lap. It should follow a more surface-level primer, so they at least have their footing first. That being said, when I did a brief bit of TA’ing and teaching, I recommended to my students that they sit down and read it, acknowledging that they would only understand about 50% of it, if that. Then, a year later, they should re-read it and they’d be surprised at how much more they understand and how much more they could analyze and consider the concepts. Every so often I return to Bringhurst (I’ve read it from front to back about 3 times, but dip into it regularly) as both a barometer and a refresher. I don’t think I’ll ever understand/use 100% of it, but I get more and more from it each time. This, to me, is what makes it such a valuable and practical tool.

Most of these books overlap with about 50% of their content, so I’ve found that finding the right book is often just as much as case of the quality of the text as it is the compatibility of the reader and the presentation.

Other books I’ve found useful are: Lupton’s Thinking With Type and Felici’s Complete Manual of Typography. Lupton delivers the message in a very digestible and skillful manner. She hits on the totality and reality of designing with type very well, whereas I like Felici’s somewhat pedantic nature. It was great to have someone really get down to the nitty gritty and show blocks of type with different H&J settings (it’s Quark 4.1-centric, which is now ironic, as it was published by Adobe). The further irony is that I really didn’t like the typesetting in Felici’s book. But I found the actual content to be very valuable at training my eye and mind to recognize subtle differences in set type.

If my memory serves me right, the first type related books I bought were The Thames and Hudson Manual of Typography by Ruari McLean and Type & Typography by Baines & Haslam, can’t recall the order. Neither was for school, and I didn’t have a clue what to look for in a book on type.

Thanks Chris,
This is certainly not intended to sound rude, but it would be interesting to know just how many of your students really read ’Elements’ whilst still at university? And who fibbed and skipped to the end?
Do you/have you ever encouraged self-expression in your typography classes?

A few years back, when I was at university, ’conventional’ typography was seen as too academic and a lot of students — myself included, initally — just wanted to be creative without a planned, conventional approach (whoops!).
I think my entire class wanted to be a Stanley Donwood, or a David Carson, rather than an unknown who communicated conventionally!
However, maybe that was just my experience, and/or perhaps this has now changed – is rational fashionable?

Hi Mili,
In which country did you study?
Did you find either of the books inspiring?
One more than the other?
Did you know what to look for in a book about typography after reading them?

Sorry — so many questions.

What was exciting for me to read middle of the 70ies was an american magazine, a big formatted one, I cannot remember the name, but I think, you guys know it? It was called UC&L or so. A newspapier format and paper. With exciting new typography ideas (for me). It was the first magazine, what I got (for free!!) by mail from US.

Georg
_______________________________________________
„Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben...“

U&lc was published by ITC and had a very large following. It was free to anyone on their mailing list. I still have several copies as wellth the hardbound book of specimens from ITC, “The ITC Typeface Collection”. It is filled with the large x-height and tightly spaced faces of the era.

ChrisL

...just how many of your students really read ’Elements’ whilst still at university? And who fibbed and skipped to the end?

They’re just cheating themselves. How can you understand the ending unless you’ve read the whole thing?

:-)

I must admit that I have attempted to read “Elements” a few times and just can’t get through it. I realize everyone on earth praises it to glory but I just find it grueling to read. There is tons of information there, for sure, but I just can’t connect with the writing. I have owned the book for 4 years but avoid it over any of the other books I own and I have hundreds of type books collected over the past 50 years.

ChrisL

I sort of skipped the last third of The Elements of Typographic Style, but I still got a lot out of it. I think I read Stop Stealing Sheep next and Designing with Type third. The first two discussed differences in different styles of type, but Designing with Type explained them in a more exciting way. Only after reading Designing with Type did I understand the major differences among different styles of type.

One of my friends recently expressed interest in typography after I critiqued her use of hyphens. I gave her The Elements of Typographic Style and Thinking with Type. I was thinking about giving her Designing with Type, but I didn’t give it to her, mainly because the pages are big.

On the topic of current textbooks, the popular books one finds either on syllabi or in handouts at the Corcoran are:
1st & 2nd semester: Stop Stealing Sheep, Thinking With Type, Typographic Design: Form and Communication, Elements of Typographic Style, Revival of the Fittest
3rd and 4th Semester: Exploring Typography, Type and Typography, Grid Systems (Muller-Brockmann), Designing Books

It’s also pretty common to see teachers recommend Making and Breaking the Grid, Designing Type (for logo projects) and Willi Kunz’s books. Typography and grids are pretty important at the Corcoran.

I suffered from poor craft skills during my Typography 1 course. Everything was done by hand there, and this caused me to severely dislike the course and the subject.

Before I took my second semester of typography, I had a six-week course in stone-carving, for which the hand-lettering and carving was just more craft, which I did not excel at. However (God knows why…) I read Elements of my own accord concurrently. Bringhurst’s prose (and his magical writing alone!) made me fall in love with type. I read the book quickly, in a feverish rush, from cover to cover (except for that weird chapter on page proportion). I was only 19.

I do not buy this rubbish that young students do not read. Those that do not I cannot take seriously! This is just the way it is… not everyone who studies graphic design is cut out for typography, which isn’t a bad thing. I’m not particularly cut out for illustration myself either, for instance.

I know plenty of type and typography people who read. I’ve studied at four schools in three countries, and the students that were the most into type were always voracious readers. They read everything. In fact, we used to try to out do each other (“what, you read that? goddamit! what can I read next that’ll be even more impressive?”).

My very first book about typography was The Lettering Book by Noelene Morris. I started using it from when I was about 7, and stopped using it when I was about 12 (we stopped doing ’title pages’ in our exercise book after that). I’m pretty sure that I still have it somewhere. Ah, the memories!

—K

Typography and grids are pretty important at the Corcoran.

Maybe that’s because typography and grids are pretty important. Typing, with fonts in a document, you are setting characters in a line. This line is spaced in relation to other lines. These multi-line blocks live in relation to their pages, and with other blocks, elements, images, etc.

Sounds like a grid to me ;-)

Ginger’s Stop stealing sheep and find out how type works. =)

-

www.nunocoelho.com

I do not buy this rubbish that young students do not read.

It’s not that they don’t read, it’s that they often don’t read what they’re supposed to, at least relative to their majors.

Maybe that’s because typography and grids are pretty important.

I agree. I was just making the point that we get the stuff beaten into our heads in every design class for three years, while at some schools only a semester of type is required and grids are not taught at all.

This is certainly not intended to sound rude, but it would be interesting to know just how many of your students really read ’Elements’ whilst still at university? And who fibbed and skipped to the end?
Do you/have you ever encouraged self-expression in your typography classes?

No offense taken, certainly. It’s a good question. I imagine the number was low, as I was not the lead professor and was simply making a recommendation. EoTS was starting its first sweep through CMU’s School of Design at the time. I was simultaneously TA’ing for a Graphic Design Fundamentals-style crash course and teaching 4 design apps in 4 weeks to incoming grad students. They were a very serious and committed bunch, though, so I’m sure most of them checked it out and those who did read it, really dug into it. Because it was simply my recommendation and not a real directive, I didn’t bother to hold them to it in any way.

Because I’ve never really run my own type class in the full sense, I wasn’t in a position to encourage self-expression. However, I strongly believe that it’s far too easy to swing the pendulum to either side to the detriment of the other. Some of my favorite professors, Karen Berntsen and Karen Moyer (these are the two relevant to this topic, not my only favorites) had ingenious ways of encouraging creative problem solving over handing out stylistic specifics. CMU was very Swiss-centric when it came to style, but in many ways the onus for creativity and style was pretty much in the laps of the students. However, it was rock-solid for teaching problem solving and conceptual thinking. If I were to teach, I would put students on three parallel paths, intersecting with a final project: 1) rules, conventions and standards; 2) free-form exploration and expression; 3) problem solving and lateral thinking.

I think there’s a way to emphasize all three approaches and keep students engaged. In the end, the professor needs to communicate a true passion for what they do, particularly because graphic design and typography are such a strange brew of pedantic rules and heady rule-breaking. This is why Lupton’s book is a good first step, from my perspective. It’s like a friendly conversation with a passionate practitioner, whereas reading Bringhurst is more like gaining access to the secret manuscripts of the Cult of Typography;* if you don’t have some degree of passion and knowledge already, you’ll quickly lose interest in the prose and minutiae and become overwhelmed. I’m sure this is why Bringhurst is not as appealing to longtime practitioners as well: much of that knowledge is not particularly novel to those who’ve experienced pre-digital type.

*Though they’re certainly only secrets in the sense that most never think to seek them out.

At school, we began with Thinking with type then proceeded to Elements of Typographic style.
But my real first, was an old Russian/Estonian book on typography and lettering “Современный шрифт” Modern Type by Villu Toots.

_____________________________________________
Personal Art and Design Portal of Ivan Gulkov
www.ivangdesign.com

W. A. Dwiggins’ Layout in Advertising.
A brilliant little book.

My first “type book” was Le Ramat de la typographie (sorry, no English translation, in a word, it’s a technical book telling rules about where to place spaces and so on). Next followed Felici’s The Complete Manual of Typography.

At University we were obligated to read Bringhurst’s The Elements of typography (wich lead me to A Short History of the Printed Word) and Noordzij’s The Stroke (wich lead me to Letter Letter). To be sure that we were reading them, our teacher asked us to do an oral presentation about the chapter of the week. I do like Bringhurst and do not find it difficult to read, but I must admit that I skipped Appedix A:The Working Alphabet (don’t be rude to me, it’s “just” a listing of glyphs!).

Bringhurst and Noordzij are still in the corpus of the University.

Otherwise, I enjoyed Making and breaking the grid, Grid Systems in Graphic Design, Dutch type, Couterpunch, Type now, lots of Hyphen Press books and so on…

Eric Gill’s An Essay on Typography

If type specimen books count then it was so long ago I couldn’t tell you. But if it’s actual books about type we’re after, it was either Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface or this gem. I don’t have a lot of typography books.

The first one I bought was Felici’s. Coming into typography from being an editor, not a designer, I found Felici to be a more familiar language than Bringhurst.

In which country did you study?
Finland, but the books were bought in London. The school I went to had fairly limited amount of typography in its agenda, and we had our own material. There weren’t a lot of books on type in Finnish then, not even now.

Did you find either of the books inspiring?
One more than the other?
I somehow found the Hudson a bit old fashioned (well, it was older), Type and Typography was more interesting. Getting really into typography took time, there were so many other aspects in design to learn, too.

Did you know what to look for in a book about typography after reading them?
Not really. I don’t know if I should even admit this, but I only learned about Bringhurst from Typophile. After discovering this site my typografical library has grown a lot.

Sorry — so many questions.
That’s ok :)

Bringhurst.

Favourite, though it’s not really a book on typography per se, is the Lubalin biography.

Thanks to all that have posted since I last logged on.

Mili
That’s quite acceptable that you learnt about Bringhurst’s ‘Elements’ on Typophile. I think the book is largely referenced in typographic circles, but I don’t think I have ever seen it in a bookshop here in the UK. At least not since its original release.

Chris
I agree, I think Lateral Thinking is absolutely crucial. Learning about past and current methodologies before using abstract concepts. I think students who have learnt convention in the first stages can’t help being guided by it in the lateral thinking modules, because it makes sense. I think one benefit of lateral thinking, is that it serves to show the order and balance provided by well-practiced conventional design methods that the student has stepped away from (in the lateral thinking module).

Dan
I agree. Reading books/articles/other comes with the territory. Sure, not every graphic design student is cut out for studying typography, however, unfortunately, many of them want to practice it. I think if you sign up to design books, brochures, websites, newspapers, and visual identities or, in fact anything text-based it would be foolish to ignore the discoveries of the people who have laid the path for you — to listen to what they have to say before you make your moves.

This week I have seen two very worrying examples of typography. The first was a conversation with a student, who on the one hand told me he was a stickler for typography rules and on the other told me that kerning was no longer relevant to designers as “Indesign does it for you”, and past technologies (metal and photosetting) were ‘irrelevant to digital typography”. I recommended ‘Elements’.

The second was a friend of a friend who sent us an ’e-catalogue’ he’d just finished for his new employers. The catalogue was in flash, and when we zoomed-in the type at low resolution so it could not be distinguished, “but” he said, “the pages-turning effect is cool”.

Reading is not for everyone, but sometimes you have to just get on with it — it will broaden your mind.

smiling emoticon.

The Elements of Typographic Style.

It thins out the crop of first years.

…“Indesign does it for you”…

I told a friend of mine he needed to track out some big capitals a few days ago. He thought I was talking about optical kerning settings :(

It thins out the crop of first years.

Does it really thin the herd, or does it just turn them into kids who blow off required type classes and will spend the rest of their lives using software defaults and system fonts?

Regarding “First years”, books on typography have their place but the instructor has the major role to play in how the class is presented and what gets emphasis. The students also have a role to play in either their demise or their success in typography. If a student does not have the desire to learn and is trying to maximize their beer drinking time by ignoring their studies, then they deserve to be the chaff which the wind driveth away. I am an old fart and there just were not many typography books available in 1962 when I was a freshmen in design school. We did not have a text book. We were required to purchase the ATF specimen card stack. Everything else we learned from the instructors and by hand-setting metal type. The jobstick is a cruel, unrelenting teacher. I wish I had all the books now available as a youngster back then but I think we were a dedicated lot of kids who took our work seriously. Students today may also be dedicated and those are the ones who will succeed. The party-timers will pass with the same exhale as their last beer burp and evaporate.

ChrisL

FWIW, my first was Stop Stealing Sheep followed rapidly by the Baines & Haslam. Unless you count stuff like Hart’s Rules. Bringhurst was a while later.

__________________________________________________
Ever since I chose to block pop-ups, my toaster’s stopped working.

Oh, what the hell.

The Design of Books by Adrian Wilson. Then Tschichold’s The Form of the Book.

Funny how these things oscillate. I went into design because of my fascination with computers, then ended up cranking an old letterpress!
_____________________________________________
Personal Art and Design Portal of Ivan Gulkov
www.ivangdesign.com

Tschichold, The Form of the Book.

The fact that this was my first book on typography while Nick’s was Tschichold’s Asymmetric Typography probably presages many agreements and disagreements.

As a student, I started in 1991 with Edward Gottschall’s Typographic Communications Today — then an already outdated book (there wasn’t much to read in France at that time). I found it a useful compendium of people, styles and typefaces before “graduating” to Sebastian Carter and Philip Meggs.
Being able to recommend something more valuable to my own students was my main motivation for translating Ellen Lupton’s Thinking with Type in French (I was paid a fixed fee for this translation job, so I don’t feel like I’m squeezing money out of them when I urge them to buy it).

American Typography Today, by Rob Carter.

by now you’ve surmised from my semi-literate ranting that i never formally studied typography or graphic design. in school i was entirely focussed on painting and animation. i’ve had, nevertheless, a broad livelihood in motion graphics, a small percent of it involving typography informed primarily by my eyes, imagination, colleagues, memories, and clients.

the photo-lettering catalog was literally the first book relating strictly to typography that i opened. i was a teenager into circus type and it blew my mind from sheer variety. over the years i’ve picked up a few of the books mentioned in this thread: sheep, manual(s) of typog, designing with type, tschichold, emigre, and trendy anthologies : typography now, type club annuals, etc.

i was at mtv in the 90’s when carson was mashing up print; everybody loved him, but i remembered saville’s joy division, and i really liked steven gilmore’s art for nettwerk. it’s been an interesting process trying to reverse-educate myself back to foundation and classics. i am humbled, amazed, and educated by the posts on typophile.

i’ve derived a mandatory reading list from this thread. many real thanks.

smiling emoticon.

“manuel de typographie francaise” by Yves Perrousseaux. It opened my eyes on typography, and made me want to read / learn / practice more and more. 9 years later I asked my students to buy it and read it as well. 17 years later, this year, in october, I am going to release a typography book at the very same publisher, with contributions from Erik Spiekermann, Xavier Dupre, Ale Paul and Bas Jacobs, among others.

dr

Chris H
It’s fantastic that you’ve got some use from everyone’s comments.

As a ’bonus’ book I would read (if you haven’t already), A Short History of the Printed Word (Paperback) by Warren Chappell (Author), Robert Bringhurst (Editor). Chappell slipped-up on some of the dates and used far too many long words, but Bringhurst definitely made the new addition more accurate and accessible.

’Short History’ concerns the history of the theory and practice of type design and typography — essential knowledge to typographic designers, despite the grumbles of some. Admittedly, I wasn’t aware of the importance of heritage to typography whilst at university; however, the more books you read on the subject, the more you realise that, despite appearances, in many respects it’s pretty much the same under the bonnet as it’s always been.

My first book on typography was Otl Aicher, Typographie. It still shows ;-)
No, honestly it might not be very valuable in terms of a How-To-handbook, but i still respect the man (and the book) for his uncompromising approach. And yes, some points in the book have to be taken with a grain of salt, but still seem completely logical when considering where he was coming from in terms of thought and background.

Starting to work as a copywriter in the last days of the photo-typesetting era, what made me fall in love with type was not strictly a type book, but the Letraset type catalogue.

Then came the U&LCs - again not quite type book, but you made the most of what you got. The first proper type book I bought was “Elements...”

From my 1st Year of College

Typographic Design: Form and Communication
Rob Carter, Ben Day, Philip B. Meggs

Digital Type & Color
Thinking with Type
then Bringhurst.

In that order.

“Studentenfutter” by SpiekerErik was definitely my first book on typography.
After that “Ausgewählte Aufsätze über Fragen der Gestalt des Buches und der Typographie” by Jan Tschicholdand then “Stop Stealing Sheep” as so many of you. After that I didn’t own a book about typography until I bought “Thinking with Type” by Ellen Lupton last year. In art school we didn’t read books at all (I think...).

Armin Hofmann’s “Graphic Design Manual” + “Typography” by Emil Ruder.

thinking w/type - Ellen Lupton

Designing With type. A basic Course in Typography. James Crag.

before that; Lettraset catalogs.

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BRILLIANT. Anyone care to join in who harks from the days of metal?

“Typiskt Typografiskt” by swedish typographer Bo Berndal. Available in swedish only.

Hangul Design by Yoon Younggi (윤영기의 한글 디자인). This is a nuts-and-bolts type design book rather than a general typography book. Yoon is the founder of Yoon Design, a leading Korean foundry. This 1999 book details the design process of a selection of hangul typefaces that Yoon and his collaborators worked on.

Type and Typography: The Designer’s Type Book
and
Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography

Can’t remember which one was first, but I think the Rosen one, they were both part of my first semester of school though.

Thanks to everyone who posted.
Anymore for anymore? Come on! :)

>> BRILLIANT. Anyone care to join in who harks from the days of metal?

I already did. Way early in this discussion.

powers

“Lo presente libro insegna la vera arte delo excellente scrivere de diverse varie sorti de litere le quali se fanno per geometrica ragione” (by. Giovanni Antonio Tagliente)
“Manuale Tipografico del cavaliere Giambattista Bodoni” (obviously by Bodoni, in the Franco Maria Ricci edition)
Joseph Muller-Brockman, “The Graphic Designer and His Design Problems”...

Will,
Sorry, I meant to say ’does anyone else from the days of metal care to join in?’ It was badly phrased.

Any other current students out there who’d like to suggest any new or classic books?

A new one i cannot recommend enough is Richard Sennett, The Craftsman. Not a book about typography, but generally about work ethics, work morale and related problems, and an attitude of doing something for the sake of itself (put very simply). I find it more enlightening and thought-provoking than 20 kgs of your average graphic design/typography books.

”...doing something for the sake of itself (put very simply)”

But put very well and perfect for type design.

ChrisL