Typography (The Thames & Hudson Manuals)

Brilliant and very useful for my project!

I absolutely loved this book. It contained all the little things I usually forget when it have been some time between typography work. It does come off as a bit dry, it is a lot of text, but else good for the odd bits you tend to forget!

we bought this as my daughter is in her 2nd year on an art illustration degree course. it was suggested reading by her tutor-which makes a great gift for art students.

Outdated but few chapters are noteworthy

It is precisely because this book was written before the ubiquity of desk top publishing that I would recommend it to anyone thinking of making a book. When it was written, there were still strong links between typography (what we call graphic design today) and printing. Understanding these connections provides an important foundation in dealing with a blank page. This book helps the reader understand what makes a well designed book. With its help you will exercise restraint, appreciate conventions and design the very best book (or page) that you are capable of. Read it first and you'll save hours of subsequent agonising over "what went wrong". With this book you are in very safe hands - its guidance will free you to make creative decisions instead of worrying about whether the Foreword should go before or after the Contents.

This book is quite a disappointment. Instead of leading the reader logically through a primer on orthography (good typography) or providing a comprehensive reference book, this is a collection of idiosyncratic observations. (A high point is the day McLean dared to set poetry in sans serif type!) It has some illustrations of good and bad layout, but not enough for a layperson to be able to generalize useful rules. The book itself isn't very attractive, and it cannot be recommended as a modern introduction. Laser printers have made "everyman" (and everywoman) a typesetter, but this is not the book to lead you to better layout and design.