My October read was Thinking With Type by Ellen Lupton. This brief design handbook is an excellent addition to any student of typography which boasts itself as “A critical guide for designers, writers, editors, & students”. This quick read, which I read in a couple hours on a flight home from Honolulu, covered many of the same bases my college course on typography covered. More than just a crash course, Thinking With Type delivers the basics, history, and techniques required for effective typesetting. The book is separated into three distinct sections.
Letter
“This is not a book about fonts. It is a book about how to use them. Typefaces are an essential resource employed by graphic designers, just as glass, stone, steel, and countless other materials are employed by architects.” The Letter section of the book starts at the beginning, with movable type and the printing press and outlines how typefaces have evolved over the years while analysing specific applications of certain fonts.
Text
“Letters gather into words, words build into sentences.” The Text section of this book discusses how the written language has evolved over the years, how punctuation has played it’s invisible part of spoken language, and how different alignment and expression can change interpretations. This section analyses executed typesetting over a range of 500 years, it’s an interesting read.
Grid
“A grid breaks space or time into regular units.” A grid system is a common tool for those familiar with typesetting. This section covers grid executions used in books, posters, online, magazines, and basic data layouts. It also suggest interesting class exercises to familiarize yourself with grid-setting.
This was a great read that refreshed my knowledge of typesetting, and helped me refine a few techniques. A respectable addition to any bookshelf.
