Typography Reading List

Monographs:

Harling, Robert. The Letterforms and Type Designs of Eric Gill. London: Eva Svensson/Westerham Press, 1976. A small treatise on the designer of Perpetua, Gill Sans and Joanna typefaces.

Martin, Noel (Introduction). Hermann Zapf: Calligrapher, Type-designer and Typographer. Cincinnati: The Contemporary Arts Center, 1960. Catalog from an exhibition -- an appreciation of the designer of Palatino, Michelangelo, Melior, Sistina, Optima and other typefaces.

McLean, Ruari. Jan Tschichold: Typographer. Boston, David R. Godine, 1975. Written after Tschichold's death, the book chronicles his entire career, including Tschichold's "post-asymmetric" period, during which he returned to a more traditional (symmetrical) -- and most exquisite -- approach to design.

Muller, Fridolin, Editor. Piet Zwart. New York: Hastings House, 1966. Zwart: a groundbreaking Dutch practitioner of asymmetric typography.

Tschichold, Jan. Asymmetric Typography. New York: Reinhold Publishing, 1967. Translated by Ruari McLean from Typographische Gestaltung, Basle, 1935. The most influential treatise on typography I've ever read.

Wozencroft, Jon. The Graphic Language of Neville Brody. New York: Rizzoli, 1988. Brody is a seminal figure in design and type design of the 1980s and 1990s.

Young, Doyald. Logotypes & Letterforms: Handlettered Logotypes and Typographic Considerations. New York: Design Press, 1993. My lettering instructor at Art Center College (1971-72) presents an overview of his career.

Young, Doyald, introduction by Hermann Zapf. Fonts & Logos -- Font Analysis, Logotype Design, Typography, Type Comparison and History. Sherman Oaks, CA: Delphi Press, 1999. A bigger book, with even more exquisite stuff (though the author expressed that he liked his first book better).

General Typography

Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. Point Roberts, WA: Hartley & Marks, 1992. The whole gamut from components of letterforms to designing books. History, practice and analysis, in an exquisite tome.

Carter, Rob. American Typography Today. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989. An overview of contemporary designer/typographers, from Bradbury Thompson and Lou Dorfsman to April Greiman and Warren Lehrer.

Gottschall, Edward M. Typographic Communications Today. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989. A rich and comprehensive overview of all aspects of typography, from its history to an explanation of digital typesetting systems. Features many designers and typographers, and incorporates a broad range of examples of great typography.

McGrew, Mac. American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Books, 1993. Amazing showings (complete alphabets in most cases) of and commentary about, hundreds and hundreds of typefaces.

Merriman, Frank. A.T.A. Type Comparison Book. Advertising Typographers Association of America, 1965. An extraordinary little tome, showing many, many typefaces, grouped by style. I've pined long and hard for such a book that included typefaces produced since 1965....

Design and Typography (greatly abridged list):

Ades, Dawn. The 20th-Century Poster: Design of the Avant-Garde. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984. A prize collection of some "icons" of this century's best designers, from Rodchenko, Bayer and Duchamp through Kauffer, Cassandre and Bernhard to Rand, Yokoo and Weingart.

Heller, Steven; and Anderson, Gail. American Typeplay. Glen Cove, NY: PBC International, 1994. A fun collection of all kinds of design that uses type as a major component, or in particularly engaging ways.

Koizumi, Hitoshi (Introduction). New Typo Graphics: The New Faces of Contemporary Typography. Tokyo: P-I-E Books, 1993. An adventurous and inspiring international collection of contemporary design and typography. Very broad, stylistically, and very current.

Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1983. A comprehensive overview of graphic design, from the invention of writing through the early 1980s. As a result of the publication date, no mention is made of computer-generated design (the first Macintosh was announced in 1984); consequently, the book is a refreshing look at design from a non-technical perspective.

Poynor, Rick. The Graphic Edge. London: Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1993. Like New Typo Graphics (above), this book presents an international collection of cutting-edge designers' work. Broad, comprehensive and most inspiring.

Poyner, Rick; and Clibborn, Edward Booth. Typography Now: The Next Wave. London: Booth Clibborn Editions, 1991. A host of wild and crazy designs from the cutting edge of design and typography (circa 1991, anyway...).

Poynor, Rick. Typography Now 2. London: Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1996. Another of the same sort of book as Typography Now and The Graphic Edge.

Walton, Roger, ed. Typographics 3: Global Vision. New York: Hearst Books International, 1998. More typocentric design....

Grammatical Style

A Manual of Style. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969 [and presumably updated]. How to understand -- and handle -- everything from proofreaders' marks to wedding invitations, punctuation and abbreviations to ... bibliographies!

Strunk, Jr., William, and White, E.B. The Elements of Style. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1979. Rules of word usage, an analysis of writing style, and principles of composition. The typographer deals in words; this is one (highly respected) treatise on the arrangement of said "typographic elements."