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.
I couldn't put it down, which goes to show I am a huge nerd. Seriously, though, I learned a ton of interesting and useful information related to bookmaking. I think everyone who works in the publishing industry could benefit from reading through it.
Though I'd been given an old edition (2003), this was very helpful to learn general typographic guidelines! My InDesign documents will be better now than ever. I plan to check out the latest edition, since software and tech (especially screen resolution) have updated so much.
The book on typography in our time. If you typeset books this is your ultimate tool. Felici goes into every detail right down to the spacing in between the letters. Filled with examples written in easy and entertaining manner. Let the master, James Felici, be your guide.
a pretty good read to learn the basics of typography so you don't make ugly things. And for the record... everyone needs to stop using comic sans. NOW.
This book serves its title perfectly: this is the complete guide. Everything is in there, with beautiful examples of all the nitty gritty typography conundrums.
Part ONE - Typography Basics 1) The State of the Art and How We Got Here 2) Units of Typographic Measurement 3) About Typefaces 4) About Fonts 5) The Basics of using Typefaces 6) Typesetting versus Typewriting 7) Setting Type on a personal Computer 8) What Makes Good Type Good (and Bad Type Bad)
Part TWO - How to Set Type 9) Measure, Point Size, and Leading 10) Controlling Hyphenation and Justification 11) Kerning and Tracking 12) Managing Indentation and Alignment 13) Special Characters and Special Situations 14) Document Structures and Typographic Conventions 15) Tables 16) Language-Specific Issues 17) Typesetting with Style Sheets 18) Output-Resolution Issues
For the end, let me just quote from the introduction of this book: "Gutenberg was the last person to get away with the bad typography. Since type as such didn't exist before him, he was the last person to escape typographic criticism. All of you have no excuse: you will produce great typography because 550 years of experience and this great book are at your fingertips.