Color is used subtly, not only to differentiate page content and sections, but also to demarcate examples and reproductions. Even the title page, a tightly rendered sketch that echoes the cover layout, seems to imply that thinking, or designing, with type is best done on paper, before one sits at the computer. Every surface has been used to communicate some aspect of type, and Lupton’s wit is evident throughout.
Carefully chosen graphics of historic and contemporary works inform the text, and vice-versa. The book is beautifully designed and finely illustrated. The different typographic choices available to today’s computer-enabled designer are displayed, along with reasons for picking one over the other.Īn Appendix offers a crash course in editing and proofreading, as practiced today, and some excellent free advice to boot. And like any good educator, Lupton doesn’t just tell you typographic dos and don’ts, she shows you, with examples that are smart and humorous. The third piece presents the different ways in which grids have been used to organize typographic matter.Įach essay is followed by an amply-illustrated how-to section and exercises. The second essay articulates the evolution of text from linear page to non-linear screen. The article on Letter furnishes a brief overview of major trends in typeface design, from the fifteenth century to the present. The book is organized into three main sections - Letter, Text and Grid -, each of which starts with a well-researched, thought-provoking essay.
Much care has gone into the creation of this third title in the Design Briefs series from Princeton Architectural Press, bringing the instruction of typography into the twenty-first century. Written for “anyone who regularly and enthusiastically commits acts of visual communication”, as well as to accompany her own courses in typography at Maryland Institute College of Art, designer, author and Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students, provides not only the how but also the why of basic typesetting practices for both print and screen, grounding this practical knowledge in a historical and theoretical context. Something valuable gets lost in the shuffle. But what of the typesetter’s knowledge and craft? The appearance of new technologies seems to produce a disconnect between old and new ways of doing things. With the advent of the Macintosh computer and desktop publishing software in the 1980s, tasks once performed by others, such as typesetting and the creation of mechanicals, fell upon the designer.
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