Customer Reviews

Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes

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I adored the first edition of Type & Layout. When I saw it was being reprinted, I promptly bought copies for every graphic designer I know and wrote a glowing review of it for Amazon.com. Then I received my copy of this new edition, and I have deleted my glowing review to submit this much-dimmer one. Geoffrey Heard, who provided the "additional material" for this edition, has taken a readable, well-laid-out book and transformed it into a mess of drawings of eyeballs, arrows pointing every which way, scattered call-outs, multiple exclamation points and question marks, and unnecessarily dramatic pronouncements ("A shocker!"). Every one of Wheildon's rules is broken in the layout of this new edition, and Heard should be permitted nowhere near Photoshop. I wonder who decided that Weildon's book, which had been through four printings and stood the test of time, needed improvement, or that Heard was the guy to improve it. The good news is that most of Wheildon's original work remains intact. So, buy this book, ignore all the extraneous, messy, goofiness that Heard infused into it -- you'll know it when you see it -- and give it all of your designer friends with the disclaimer that it used to be a really great book.

As stated in the beginning of Type & Layout, this in "...not a book about opinions, it reports the results of nine years of hard-nosed, rigorous research." For anyone working in publishing, this book is an indispensable guide for using typography and layout that ensures maximum comprehension and readability.

Colin Wheildon covers a wide range of topics including the readability of serif vs. sans-serif body type, upper and lower case vs. ALL CAPS, black vs. color body text, and much more. The conclusions in this book are clear, the supporting research data is convincing and the examples provided are enlightening.

The only thing I don't like about this book is the horrible cover design (front and back) and the ad for other Worsley Press books in the back. As David Ogilvy states in the forward, the person who ignored the rules presented in this book "should be burned in oil." In any case, I highly recommend this book if you have never read this before.

I'm a graphic designer. I'm one of those oddballs who reads books on typography for fun. Really. That being said, it's been a very long time since I've come across a book as amazingly awful as this one. I read the first 20 pages and found my mind constantly wandering, then skimmed the rest. The book's content is mostly opinion dressed up as "scientific" study. Hey, opinions are fine, no problem. But if you're going to insist that they have a scientific basis, then cite your research, explain how it was done (control groups? blind studies? how were volunteers chosen? age groups/demographics? Anything?!) and back up your theories. None of which happens here. And it's all related in a tone that goes from ridiculously fawning to faintly hysterical and back again.
In terms of layout, this book is a great example of what NOT to do. Illustrations and example ads are discussed, with the text in one section, and the photos stuck in completely unrelated sections, so that you constantly have to flip back and forth thoughout the book. The visual examples have been doctored with arrows, cartoonish stars, etc., making it hard to actually see the ad itself, and in the paperback edition, all the color ads are printed in black and white, with the colors "described". Oh man. All this for $39.95?! I couldn't return it fast enough.
Check out Stealing Sheep, by Spiekermann & Ginger, or Thinking With Type by Lupton, instead.

This classic offers not opinions but facts based on surveys. It is one of those books I deem as an essential for my publishing library. No other book covers the subject with such clarity and credibility. It is a must-have for anyone involved in the layout and design of the printed word, whether a book, a magazine or
an advertisment. As a typesetter and publisher I refer to it often.

I waited weeks for the 2005 updated version of this classic. I'm so glad I did!

As a writer, I once paid little attention to layout and type. Those days are over, because now I grasp concepts that will make my words so much more powerful -- or kill my words altogether:

How layout influences what is retained by the reader -- much more than I ever imagined.

How type can enhance or destroy readability.

The effects of centering -- when it works, when it doesn't, and why.

Why line spacing and margins matter.

This book resides on my desk - right beside my keyboard, so I can grab it quickly for reference.

When the next version comes out, I'll again wait weeks for it (if I have to). The information it contains is essential to writers for ensuring that what you write gets read.

Phyllis Staff, Ph.D.
author, "How to Find Great Senior Housing"
and
"128 Ways to Prevent Alzheimer's and Other Dementias"

If you've ready Ogilvy On Advertising, you've been slightly introduced to some of the concepts in this book.

This however goes deep and covers so much more of the how and why. The book will revolutionize the way you look at the print/advertising world. You'll recognize all the garbage that's pumped every day, and you'll appreciate it when you come across a real layout gem.

Just a great read for non-designers and designers alike, it gives us a common language to discuss creative. When I get tired of hearing meaningless comments like "clean look," "hard to read," "just doesn't pop" or "too complicated" I usually buy that person a copy of this book, and wait for more effective communication to start. Sick of designers using reversed out type and thinking its creative? Get this book and start doing things that actually sell, rather than just look good.

Many designers are asked to prove the "principles" they claim are important to good typographic design. There are very few sources, almost no research documents, that they can point to with specific findings. Colin Wheildon's book contains the missing, important research data that support many assumptions . . . and dispute or upset a few of them along the way. He surveys a controlled group of participants and reports their perceptions on legibility, ease of reading, clarity, and other factors in the act of reading. And he doesn't limit his field to the two old warhorses of the debate, Times Roman and Helvetica, but includes many other styles of type and named faces. He assesses elements such as how well the text follows the "normal" path of reading in Western countries using the Latin alphabet (top left, across, and down to bottom right); alignment (flush left, flush right, centered, justified); all caps v. c&lc; use of colors (the text printed in color and the text printed on top of colored areas) and use of reverse type; line length; and many others. He discusses each factor and then gives his conclusions, after which he lists the responses to that factor in a table that ranges from Good to Fair to Poor.
If you're a designer, you "gotta have" this book on your shelf.

I first heard Colin Wheildon report to our local Society of Business Communicators on his research into how best to present printed material to aid comprehension back in about 1985. It's no exaggeration to say those present were all blown away by what he'd found. Back then communicators were heavily into print: employee newspapers, magazines, brochures, booklets, and information packs proliferated. At that time there was little understanding about the difference between sending out stuff and communicating. And our society had recently changed its name from the Society of Industrial Editors. So print was BIG, really big.

By 1985 I'd chalked up 20 years in human resources had just moved into employee communication consulting. In HR I'd spent two decades struggling to make sense of newspaper loadings for recruitment display advertisements in some of the world's leading papers, adjudicated on countless designers' ideas about layout, fonts, white space, justification and so on. Then, when it was too late, here was a guy who'd done enough research to explain exactly what I should have doing for all those years.

Twenty years on, with the author in a beachside retirement home, an updated fifth edition is available globally. So has it stood the test of time? Yes, indeed it has - with the help of the author's thorough research for nine years, three editors and two publishers. One of the publishers was a direct marketer who proved the veracity of Wheildon's research findings. The current publisher, Geoffrey Heard, is a psychologist, editor and desktop publisher. He's added an interesting introduction, a chapter of 15 useful case studies and three appendices on various aspects of publishing (colour, eye movements, reading, typographical terms, and what's best for non-fluent readers).

Wheildon, the son of a master printer in Derby, England, was clever. At the outset he got excellent advice regarding his methodology. David Ogilvy (who said of this book "no guesswork only facts") helped him clarify what he was researching: comprehension rather than legibility. Leading academics in Sydney (Australia), Richmond (Virginia) and Reading (UK) guided his research. The survey sample was not large, a few hundred people, but it is adequate.

There are some limitations with a black and white, slightly smaller than quarto size book reproducing broadsheet pages, but this does not seem to matter too much. If you're like me, you'll soon be engrossed. This 175 page paperback is well-illustrated with 98 figures including full page advertisements and (good and poor) print examples from around the world. There are comprehensive chapters on such things as page layout, body and headline type, colour, design and how to put it all together. It all seems to be there: fonts, case, point size, serif or sans serif, justification, paper, captions, columns, spacing, reversed text and so on. (Read the index and first 16 pages at Amazon.com.)

If you're involved in writing anything for publication, print advertising or design layout you'll find this a gripping read. Ignore it at your peril.

This has to be one of the most powerful and valuable marketing books I have ever read. It provides you with research results into what does and what does not work when creating advertising and marketing communication materials in regard to type and layout. No marketer should be without this book and every person in advertising should be forced to read it 10 times.