25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, for the right reader, February 21, 2005
This review is from: The Education of a Typographer (Paperback)
The right reader teaches typography and wants, at minimum, to know that [s]he is not alone out there. This book offers a number of essays, Q&A with praticing educators, and a few syllabi. This book consists of 40 or so brief pieces. That's way too many for any one voice ot dominate, but certainly covers a wide range of views and practices. There are a few minor gems here, including discussions of the unique needs of Hebrew and Arabic, and about the 'voice' of a printed text. There's no organized bibliography here, but the careful reader will be rewarded with a good long list of titles, some of which are sure to be unfamiliar.
Though by no means unanimous, there was wide agreement that hand-work exercises, using physical media, are helpful or necessary for understanding what computerized systems are doing. I have to agree. If nothing else, computer users have a tendency to treat the quirks and oddities of their chosen software as laws of nature. This inflexibility stands in sharp contrast to most students' use of ink, paper, and all the rest, where their goal is to push the medium to its limit or beyond. Because they have no way to adapt the software tools to their concepts, they constrain their concepts to the tools, sometimes unknowingly. Users of physical media may at least have the vision to see beyond those limits.
The practicing typographer won't find much to relate to here, except a formal statement of what was probably done to her in the classroom. This book is about training educators, not about training the practitioners themselves, so there is very little discussion of the concrete design issues.
This book has a rather narrow intended audience: type educators. Others (like me) can still read it, and still get some measure of insight into typography and typographers.
//wiredweird
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The basics of teaching and learning typography, March 8, 2005
This review is from: The Education of a Typographer (Paperback)
It's important to learn the elements of type before embarking on an exploration of graphic design: that's what makes Steven Heller's The Education Of A Typographer so important. Essays, interviews, and course syllabi explore the basics of teaching and learning typography, with writing by top designers and educators providing insights on the finer points of typography. Discussions cover everything from how to choose type among the hundreds of choices available to common elements of sloppy typographical choices, how to identify and eliminate them, and understanding typographic delivery to different audiences.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
AWesome Book, April 26, 2008
This review is from: The Education of a Typographer (Paperback)
Awesome book whether you're a type geek or not . I just started getting interested in learning about tyopography but this book is about more than just type , its about art and why we learn it the way we do
and how that affects how we both view and interact with the world.
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