The Elements of Typographic Style

Robert Bringhurst

Hartley & Marks, Publishers, 2004 - Design - 382 pages

Long the preserve of trained specialists alone, typography is now a territory open to everyone equipped with a computer. For millions, the ability to produce effective printed documents has lately become, like effective speaking and writing, an essential professional skill and an important source of personal satisfaction. Far more than a style guide, this book is a brief history of typographic art; a compact encyclopedia of typographic symbols, concepts and traditions; and a tour of the technologies employed, old and new. In all, it is a thoughtful and insightful desktop reference for everyone who works with written words. To writers, this book offers a whole new set of skills and tools for effective expression and communication. To readers, it offers a new dimension of reading: a deeper appreciation of letters and a deeper understanding of what they mean.--From publisher description.

What people are saying

User Review -

I have spent the last months reading dozens of books on typography, and now I just wished I had read this one first because (almost) all the information I collected from the other books can be found in this one, and different to many of the others, this one is actually fun to read.

the typographers bible

User Review  - chrisis - Borders

this book is a must-have for anyone working with type in the field of design.

Contents

• Foreword: 9
• Historical Synopsis: 12
• The Grand Design: 17

About the author

Robert Bringhurst was born October 16, 1946, in the ghetto of South Central Los Angeles and raised in the mountain and desert country of Alberta, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and British Columbia. He spent ten years as an undergraduate, studying physics, architecture and linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, philosophy and oriental languages at the University of Utah, and comparative literature at Indiana University, which gave him a Bachelor of Arts in 1973. He had published two books of poems before entering the writing program at the University of British Columbia, which awarded him an MFA in 1975. From 1977 to 1980 he taught writing and English literature at UBC, and after that, made his living as a typographer. He has also been poet-in-residence and writer-in-residence at several universities in North America and Europe. His book, The Elements of Typographic Style is considered a standard text in its field, and Black Canoe is one of the classics in the field of Native American art history. He received the Macmillan Prize for Poetry in 1975.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Elements of Typographic Style; Elements of Typographic Style; The Elements of Typographic Style: Version 3.0, Robert Bringhurst
• Author: Robert Bringhurst
• Edition: 3, illustrated
• Publisher: Hartley & Marks, Publishers, 2004
• Original from: the University of Virginia
• Digitized: Sep 10, 2008
• ISBN: 0881792055, 9780881792058
• Length: 382 pages
• Subjects: Design / Book