8

In order to understand all the design decisions in classes and packages distributed with TeX/LaTeX, and for my such choices of my own I've looked around for a basic but useful "Beginners Guide to Typography". Theories, thoughts etc (as well as schools of thought).

EDIT: I'm generally interested in the subject, but lean towards print, thesis and non-fiction typography.

I hope this is the right place to ask this and that there are loads of answers.

Cheers Mats

Mats
  • 553
  • 2
    Old, but still useful (I have no copy though): Bodoni: Manual of typography. Typography isn't unique... you should differ between print typography and web typography as well. Books on Graphics Design might help too! –  Oct 14 '15 at 09:47
  • 4
    If you look for TeX and relative based: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1319/showcase-of-beautiful-typography-done-in-tex-friends – Romain Picot Oct 14 '15 at 09:47
  • 4
    See http://typographica.org/category/typography-books/ for reviews of books on typography. – Thérèse Oct 14 '15 at 09:53
  • @ChristianHupfer of course there's a lot of typograhics (my bad). I edited the question. – Mats Oct 14 '15 at 10:04
  • @RomainPicot: I'm going to check the links immediately. Thanks. – Mats Oct 14 '15 at 10:06
  • @Thérèse: I'm going to check the links immediately. Thanks. – Mats Oct 14 '15 at 10:06
  • 4
    My favorite: Robert Bringhurst's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style – Steven B. Segletes Oct 14 '15 at 10:10
  • @RomainPicot Yes I've read quite a few of those and studied the contributions. Those are great. But when starting to realize designs for longer texts I always get lost in the richness of opportunities (w/ LaTeX), probably stemming from my lack of typographical foundation. Now, I'm up for foundation :) – Mats Oct 14 '15 at 10:29
  • 2
    Ellen Swanson's Mathematics into Type is a most valuable resource when it comes to maths. – Gonzalo Medina Oct 14 '15 at 13:23
  • 1
    Thanks everybody. I traversed all the tips. I ended up with two book. I've bought Bringhurst's as well as James Felici's The Complete Manual of Typography that showed up in a Google search and was possible to get as a PDF. Bodoni is hard to get one's hands on :). As only one can get the check mark: Bringhurst was a tip of @StevenB.Segletes' so write an answer and I'll accept it. Thanks for all the tips. Also: by then I'll up my reps enough to vote on the tips as well. – Mats Oct 14 '15 at 13:47
  • I believe that this is too far from "TeX" to be on-topic here. It could go to [GraphicDesign.SE] though, maybe. But I'm not sure about their policy on big-list questions. – yo' Oct 14 '15 at 14:00
  • 1
    The Chicago Manual of Style has a chapter on how books are edited and printed, and many other recommendations, more about writing style than typography, but still relevant to your interest. – musarithmia Oct 14 '15 at 14:43
  • @yo' I hope this is enough of a reformulation. I'm not sure it would be honest of me to reformulate the question to something not answered to of all the TeX friends who met up here. I'm sorry for tarnishing the great site if I'm not successful. Cheers – Mats Oct 14 '15 at 15:47
  • 1
    If you read French, there are excellent documents at http://jacques-andre.fr/ — including Fournier’s Manual and some information about TeX in particular. – Thérèse Oct 14 '15 at 17:47
  • @Thérèse I'm sad to say I only can make my way through Paris on my French, not through a book. :( – Mats Oct 14 '15 at 20:32

2 Answers2

9

The OP asked me to write up my comment as an answer, so here it is.

In the comments, I suggested Robert Bringhurst's, The Elements of Typographic Style (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style). I first saw it on a library shelf, when I was looking for books related to fonts. I borrowed it, finished it quickly, and had to go out and purchase my own copy.

It is visually beautiful, even as it employs a narrow page size that is a little unusual. It combines the right amount of philosophy, history, and technical detail to appeal to a wide audience.

One can peek under the hood at http://typographica.org/typography-books/the-elements-of-typographic-style-4th-edition/. It is worth a look.

Steven B. Segletes
  • 237,551
6

In addition to Bringhurst and Felici, I’d recommend the following:

  • Better Type: Learn to see subtle distinctions in the faces and the spaces of text type. Achieve legible, beautiful, and expressive type every time. by Betty Binns
  • Thames & Hudson Manual of Typography
  • Linotype Operator’s Manual — you should be able to find this in a decent library

Also, the initial portion of the manual for the documentclass memoir is an interesting effort at a typography primer.

WillAdams
  • 7,187
  • Thanks. I browsed both Thames & Hudson as well as Linotype following the tips in the comments to my question. Having a tendency to get off track I concentrate on Felici which was a PDF until Bringhurst arrive. Thanks for your answer. I'm sure I'll get back to those books though. I'll check out Binns book right away so it's in there when the time comes. Cheers. – Mats Oct 14 '15 at 15:25