Product Description

For more than two decades, the type book of choice for design professionals and students

Typographic design has been a field in constant motion since Gutenberg first invented movable type. Staying abreast of recent developments in the field is imperative for both design professionals and students. Thoroughly updated to maintain its relevancy in today's digital world, Typographic Design: Form and Communication, Fourth Edition continues to provide a compre-hensive overview of every aspect of designing with type, now in full color.

This Fourth Edition of the bestselling text in the field offers detailed coverage of such essential topics as the anatomy of letters and type families, visual communications and design aesthetics, and designing for legibility. Supplementing these essential topics are theoret-ical and structural problem-solving approaches by some of the leading design educators across the United States. Unwrapping the underlying concepts about typographic form and message, Typographic Design, Fourth Edition includes four pictorial timelines that illustrate the evolution of typography and writing within the context of world events - from the origins of writing more than 5,000 years ago to contemporary Web site and electronic page design.

New features include:

Full-color treatment throughout

A new ancillary Web site containing resources for self-learners, students and professors (www.typographicdesign4e.com)

Two new chapters: The Typographic Grid and Typographic Design Process

An updated design education section that includes recent examples of projects assigned by leading design educators

New case studies that showcase design for Web sites and animated typography projects

Case studies detailing examples of visual identification systems, environmental graphics, book and magazine design, Web site design, type in motion, and wayfinding graphics

Updated coverage of digital type technology

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47316 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From the Back Cover
For more than two decades, the type book of choice for design professionals and students

Typographic design has been a field in constant motion since Gutenberg first invented movable type. Staying abreast of recent developments in the field is imperative for both design professionals and students. Thoroughly updated to maintain its relevancy in today's digital world, Typographic Design: Form and Communication, Fourth Edition continues to provide a compre-hensive overview of every aspect of designing with type, now in full color.

This Fourth Edition of the bestselling text in the field offers detailed coverage of such essential topics as the anatomy of letters and type families, visual communications and design aesthetics, and designing for legibility. Supplementing these essential topics are theoret-ical and structural problem-solving approaches by some of the leading design educators across the United States. Unwrapping the underlying concepts about typographic form and message, Typographic Design, Fourth Edition includes four pictorial timelines that illustrate the evolution of typography and writing within the context of world events – from the origins of writing more than 5,000 years ago to contemporary Web site and electronic page design.

New features include:

Full-color treatment throughout

A new ancillary Web site containing resources for self-learners, students and professors (www.typographicdesign4e.com)

Two new chapters: The Typographic Grid and Typographic Design Process

An updated design education section that includes recent examples of projects assigned by leading design educators

New case studies that showcase design for Web sites and animated typography projects

Case studies detailing examples of visual identification systems, environmental graphics, book and magazine design, Web site design, type in motion, and wayfinding graphics

Updated coverage of digital type technology

About the Author
Rob Carter is Professor of Typography and Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University, and has served as a visiting professor at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. He has received numerous awards for his work from organizations such as the American Institute of Graphic Arts, New York Type Directors Club, New York Art Directors Club, Society of Typographic Arts, Creativity, and Print regional annual. He is the author of American Typography Today, the five-volume Working with Type series, and Digital Color and Type. He is also the co-author, with Philip B. Meggs, of Typographic Specimens: The Great Typefaces.

Ben Day is Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has also taught at Boston University and been a Visiting Designer at the University of Connecticut. His many exhibitions include the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the New York Type Directors Club, and the New York Sculpture Centre. The Boston Society of Printers awarded him a teaching fellowship. He has served as a consultant to Bostonia magazine, NASA, and the Fogg Museum, and art directed Handel and Haydn magazine. He has been selected for Who's Who Among America's Teachers.

The late Philip Meggs was a designer, educator, and author. He was School of the Arts Research Professor, Communication Arts and Design Department, at Virginia Commonwealth University; visiting faculty at Syracuse University and the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland; and contributing editor to Print magazine. He authored more than a dozen books and 150 articles and papers on design and typography, including a section on graphic design in Encyclopedia Britannica. He was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame and received its Educator's Award for lifetime achievement and significantly shaping the future of the fields of graphic design education and writing. He was posthumously awarded the AIGA Medal for design leadership.

Customer Reviews

4th Edition, Updated for digital font coverage and more
Among the things that Gutenberg invented was the whole idea of type. Since then however, there have been literally thousands of type designs developed. Some have been developed for greater readability, some came about so that a greater density of words could be put on a page, some were designed for a logo that would be unique and recognizable around the world. Today the typography world in in a state of flux greater than ever before as new digital fonts are being designed.

This book is the bestselling book in the field and discusses virtually everything there is to know about type, its uses, the effect that different styles have on the mind, the characteristic of new electronic fonts, screen fonts, laser printer fonts and much more. It is a highly graphic book using pictures to clearly illustrate what creative use of fonts can do to a book, an ad, or a web site.

lots of practical information and ideas
I got this book for class and will definitely keep it handy. It has many practical approaches to graphic design and typography in subjects ranging from layout to type design and kerning.

Studied under the author
I am taking a course right now with Rob Carter. So at the risk of this sounding like a biased review, please know that I'm not the kind of person who allows personal feelings to stand in the way of my opinion on what's good and bad.

Professor Carter's ability to effectively communicate is carried over to this text remarkably. Any obscure questions that I've had regarding typography and design have been answered by him personally and he nearly always pulls this text out to illustrate exactly what he means.

Point is, I'm in my third year in a design program and even the "random, not covered by other professor" topics, are covered in this text.

This is a text that designers will be going back to long after they've obtained their degree and are working in the field. It's a fantastic investment.

--s