Typography Essentials Revised and Updated: 100 Design Principles for Working with Type

It’s a great typographic resource and a lot of fun to look through too! An amazing collection of samples.

As a teacher of typography, as well as a designer myself, I simply enjoy reading this beautiful book. I plan to share it with my students, and I highly recommend it. “Typography Essentials” is a delightful and distinctive guide to the foundations of typography. This book succinctly describes the multifaceted mechanisms of typography as a dynamic means of communication. What sets this book apart from others is that each type rule is specifically demonstrated by several inspiring design examples that were created by many of the most important designers in the field of communications and new media.

Love, love, love! Ina comes out with another great resource. A must have for all designers. Keep them coming!

The best researched most comprehensive book on the market. A must for the serious typographer.

First the bad, then the good... I'm only halfway through the book and already stumbled upon two mistakes that are a bit hard to overlook. Both mistakes were found in the examples the writer used to explain typographical concepts. I took snapshots to help me describe these errors. The first mistake is found in a caption that describes how the magazine article shown as an example has “limited use of sans serif,” even though there is not a single instance of sans serif being used in the article. Then there's a set of screenshots of the UCLA app... I can't even imagine how the actual filenames of the jpegs used as examples got there but they're there and they're hard to ignore, and I mean "bold-hot-pink-letters-inside-a-box-of-the-same-color" hard to ignore. But other than that, this book has lots of great tips that are brilliantly explained and the amazing selection of examples used to demonstrate good use of typography definitely makes it a good book to keep around for inspiration.

An incredible resource for designers and type-curious people from Ina Saltz, one of the foremost and most beloved authorities on the subject. The book is thusly well designed for comprehension—as well as simply being beautiful. Recommended!

It’s a good book, very well written.

Based on historical evidence (i.e. all my previous reviews), it might seem odd that I would be interested in a book about typography (or maybe you’ve read enough of my reviews to know that I’m a little weird and eclectic and my interests are relatively widespread?). The truth is, I love fonts (typeface, calligraphy, lettering, etc.) Love. Love. LOVE. Back in my early blogging days, when there was no WordPress (yeah, that’s right, no WordPress) and Blogger was an upstart (we’re talking 2001 here people), those of us who wanted to blog had to build it ourselves. From scratch. No templates, no themes, no ready-to-go anything. And while that was a royal pain in the tuchus for those of us who had no programming experience (and a tremendous learning experience!), it also meant we had a lot of control over design. And one element I obsessed over is typeface. What font would give the right feel here? What combination of typefaces would work well together? How did it complement or highlight the rest of the theme I was trying to create? It was that early foray into blogging that led to my love of fonts, how I discovered the unlimited number of choices out there and that choosing the right typeface was as critical to the final aesthetic as color scheme and graphics. So there you go, a grossly reductive history of my love for typography. 😉 But I digress, let’s get to the book, shall we? So. Much. Fun! Seriously. So well put together. Will you become an expert on typography reading this book? Nope. But you will walk way knowing a lot more about it than you did before, and you’ll have had the treat of seeing, in fabulous visuals, what can be accomplished with well-thought out typography choices. By and large, my favorite element of this book is the pictures that accompanied each section. Honestly, it felt like a trip to a museum. So much creativity, so much heart and soul, so much art! In fact, it made me wonder if there were any typography museums…and guess what? There are! The closet one to me is in Massachusetts, and I can’t wait to find a time to go. Obviously the images are not the only draw here. Each section presents a different design principle for typography, and I love that the information provided is clear and concise. It presents the principle, why it’s important, how it is best applied (and how it isn’t), and is supported by the included images. The language is accessible and terminology explained. Lovely. What can I say? Is it a book for everyone? Perhaps not. But it’s certainly a book for me. And I imagine, if you are a creative type, it would be for you as well. Personally, I could look at the pictures all day long… Brilliant all around! Note: I received this book from the publisher. I pride myself on writing fair and honest reviews.

A good, albeit somewhat basic, overview of typographic principles and practices. Nothing new or exotic, and most of this can be found in other books, but the presentation in a single volume is useful. Like most books of "essentials," it is helpful to refer to it often, just as a reminder of the principles. And, of course, while design fashions change, the basics are constant. I recommend it along with type books by Bringhurst, Lupton, and others.

The number one hundred is always a fave for publishers: one hundred cooking; DIY; gardening; decorating or typographic tips. Author Saltz has written a worthwhile collection of principles that will benefit a design starter or seasoned professional. The book is divided into four main sections: Letter; Word; Paragraph; Page and these are broken down into twenty-five or twenty-six sub-sections. each spread has an individual subject and a few words about it. The main focus of the book is design reproductions supporting each spread's subject. These are all captioned with technical details. Most of the reproductions are printed matter with a smattering of packaging or signs in the environments. Nicely there is some negativity, number twenty-seven is titled Typographic abominations, with three examples. I was pleased to see that visually all the reproductions are large enough to see what is going on, unlike some books for designers that use far too much white space on each spread. The book is well worth getting and cheap enough if you look around the web. You can look inside the book at Wesread Book Reviews then click 2023 and February.

Ame el libro!