Contrasts in Book Design
A Review of Recent Typography and Texts on Type

Interesting. Thanks, Bob - can hardly wait for the contents reviews.

Good stuff, Bob.

As a printing teacher of mine used to say, "there are only two colors: black and red."

The way you feel about “Texts On Type” is much the same way I feel about “Stop Stealing Sheep”—I was so turned off by the hyperactive, jumbly style of the book that I really couldn't see myself ever reading it seriously. “Form follows function” and “the medium is the message” are two hoary designer's clichés which spring to mind when I encounter books like this. I have a hard time figuring out how the designers think using that kind of flashy, quickly-dated design is going to make a case for the content of the book.

Thanks for the feedback!

JLT, from what I've seen so far I'd have to agree with you, certainly when it comes to text. I continue to be amazed at how the careful use of just black and red on a page can really make text stand out.

On the other hand, one of the more admirable book covers I've run across recently is is Ruari McLean's Jan Tschichold which is... well, it's somewhere between orange and red. It's rather bright, but I think it's an excellent combination with black text--almost the anthesis of the Texts on Type approach.

Forrest, I totally agree. I have a copy of Stealing Sheep but it's way down on the list of books to read; so far down that I may never get to it. It's tough to take anything seriously from books with such scattered design.

I hate to judge a book by its cover (so to speak) but sometimes it's impossible not to. I'm glad I slogged my way through Texts on Type because it has some valuable insights to offer, but it was really tough going.

Feel free to use any color, as long as it's black. On the other hand, it's as easy as it is misguided to ignore the color of the paper, which is never really white.

hhp

The Henry Ford/old Ma Bell approach to typography, eh? I s'pose there's something to be said for that.

Then again, after reading Eric Gill's essays I've been mulling over how I'm ever going to hand-grind toner for my laserprinter... :)

I'm no old fogey! I see more bad than good in existing/old practice (including the lame structures in the Latin alphabet itself), it's just that monochrome design (and no half-tones, please) brings out the true story. Kind of like seeing a person naked; or at least without makeup.

hhp

Actually, Hrant, you're one of the last persons I'd suspect of being an old fogey, and I apologize if I implied anything else.

I was just reminded of Henry Ford supposedly saying "any color Model T so long as it's black", and the reluctance of Western Electric to produce phones in any other color until the 1950s--both for extremely sensible and practical (though today seemingly arbitrary) reasons.

Ford switched to all-black cars because black paint dried the fastest, lasted longest, and greatly simplified the assembly line. Phones were all black because black "goes with everything", and "japanning" (a process involving a durable baked-on black enamel) was in common use for many decades. Wasn't until the Princess that they seriously considered using alternate colors.

That's a very valid point about monochrome bring out the best and worst of art. I just wish laserprinters rendered decent blacks...

I'm fairly sure it is as it is the right time / press / style, but can anyone confirm if that title page's engraving was Mr Gill's work?

I'm 99% sure it is, based on the style, that fact that it's Golden Cockerel Press, and from what I remember reading in a biography of Eric Gill which specifically mentioned him working on the engravings for the gospel series. But A review of recent typography doesn't say anything about it directly.

I noticed that too. The profiles and hair look like Gill's work, but I can't find any reference to his having authored that particular piece. Even the otherwise-complete Gill Engravings book doesn't have it.

Stop Stealing Sheep... has had a second edition (white cover), but for me the first one (dark blue cover) was a bit easier on the eyes... less hyperactive than the current one (if, indeed, you are referring to the second edition, Forrest).

I was browsing both versions of Stop Stealing Sheep at Powell's Books in Portland, OR, and I couldn't really get into either one, especially because I was already holding a copy of Emil Ruder's Typographie and Kimberley Elam's almost excruciatingly concise and telegraphic Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type. Powell's has a good enough selection of typography books that I could drive myself broke just buying the really good stuff; it makes the second-string material all that much more obvious. Stop Stealing Sheep reminds me the early days of Raygun and Wired, when type served pretty much any purpose except actually being read.

I think SSS is OK.
Purposefully fun, if limited in depth.

hhp

As I recall, Mr. Gill was one of the first to promote ragged lines in copy. Many people in his era told him he was crazy and that rags affected legibiity negatively. Hell, designing magazines at this exact moment, I still have a hard time convincing publishers of the idea of rags.

Not to call anyone old fogeys, but give certain design ideas time. While Texts on Type may be hard to decipher now (or at least annoying to some), future generations may find it very easy. I'd be willing to bet certain groups now would find it downright obvious. But only time will tell.

I don't believe Mr. Gill was among the first (I have a typography primer from the 1840s which strongly advocates it and follows its own advice—gasp!) but he was certainly one of the more vocal advocates.

Unfortunately, I think the rag he chose for his essay collection didn't speak well for the format. I'm all for ragged-right justification, but only if it's done well. I also believe it's almost as much work to make ragged-right look good as it is to just use full justification.

One of the major arguments at the time was the saving of space offered by fully-justified text. A word here and a word there adds up to several pages in a typical book. I can't argue with that for printed text, but electronic documents are a totally different story. (Then again, one of the purported reasons blackletter died was because of the ink consumption.)

In terms of its readability, I'm on the "it depends on what you're used to side. Typewritten documents were in use for many decades, and I hav yet to see any long diatribes against them because the ragged margin made them totally unreadable. I do think there's a bit of an adjustment period, and it'll be a bit harder sell now because it's seen even less frequently in printed text than before. (Though it's obviously very common online.)

As for Texts on Type being ahead of its time, there may indeed be something to that. That's also an easy cop-out, because that argument can be applied to any artistic endeavor.

The bleeding-edge typography (if that is indeed what it is, and not just bad design) didn't enhance it in any way. The yucky overly-abused 3D effect was dated in 1990 and it's twice as dated now; it didn't strike me as fresh or innovative, but quite the reverse. And I'd hope they were writing for readers today, and not for the ones circa 2100AD.

I didn't find what they did to have any major effect on readability, so it's not a practical issue so much as aesthetics. I can definitely say that I'm not a fan, and that's not a style I plan on adopting anytime soon.

My guess is that whoever designed Texts on Type was afraid of all those essays looking too “serious” in a more traditional layout, hence the use of graphic elements that were perhaps meant to inject some visual “fun” into the mix.

Although I have to add that, like Bob, “I’m not a fan” of the results.

Bob--
I like the article and I too weep at some of the tasteless, thoughtless and objectively ugly covers and text-designs abundant in far too many typography/design books. I also agree that the cover of Ruari McLean’s biography of Jan Tschichold is a delight, because of rather than despite the rather vividly coloured cover!

"On the other hand, it’s as easy as it is misguided to ignore the color of the paper, which is never really white."--hrant

Unless you are the aforementioned Heir Tschichold setting his seminal Die neue Typographie of course ;-)

Quite by chance, today I discovered that in the UK and Europe Ruari McLean’s book on Jan Tschichold has a different cover, although the color orange is still very much present.

;-)

Hmmm... I guess those Europeans must be a little less conservative or something ;-)

I was also amused to see in the Tschichold biography that he'd done at least one rather brightly pink cover. As they say in Zanesville, a sense of design makes all the difference.

I've been meaning to follow up with a more "proper" review, but I'm currently trying to beat a neural net into submission. It has a rather serious bent for taking over the world, but all I want it to do is choose an optimal parse...