A deep understanding of letterforms and knowledge of their effective use can only be obtained with constant observation and experimentation; it evolves over a lifetime of design practice and study. This comprehensive guide is intended to advance the progress of designers seeking to deepen their typographic expertise. Typography Essentials is a practical, hands-on resource to distill, organize, and compartmentalize—but not to oversimplify—the many complex issues surrounding the effective use of typography. It is for designers of every medium in which type plays a major role, and is organized and designed to make the process enjoyable and entertaining, as well as instructional.
This book is divided into four easy-to-use sections: The Letter, The Word, The Paragraph, and The Page. Each of the 100 principles has an explanation and examples representing the principle in action.
Ina Saltz is an art director, designer, writer, photographer and professor (of Electronic Design and Multimedia at The City College of New York) whose areas of expertise are typography and magazine design. For over 22 years, Ina was an editorial design director at Time Magazine (International Editions), Worth Magazine, and other magazines including Golf Magazine, Golf for Women Magazine, and Worldbusiness Magazine. Ina frequently lectures on topics related to magazine design and typography, including Toronto, Atlanta, Denver, Moscow, Amsterdam and Calgary. She lives with her husband in New York City.
Ina Saltz is an art director, designer, author, photographer and Associate Professor of Art at The City College of New York whose areas of expertise are typography and magazine design. Since 2003, she has written over 50 articles on typography and design for Graphis, How Magazine, Step Inside Design Magazine, Folio Magazine and others.
Her third book, "Body Type 2: More Typographic Tattoos," was published in 2010 by Abrams. "Typography Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Working with Type," was published by Rockport Press in 2009. Ina's first book, "Body Type: Intimate Messages Etched in Flesh," was published by Abrams in 2006.
Please visit her website at www.bodytypebook.com
Twenty-six of Ina's essays on typography and logotypes will be published by Phaidon Press in 2010, entitled "Classics of Graphic Design." Her work has also appeared in "Handwritten," (2007) edited by Steve Heller; "100 Habits of Successful Publication Designers," (2008) by Laurel Saville; ??"Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failures, and Lessons Learned," (2008) edited by Steve Heller; and "The Education of an Art Director," (2005) edited by Steve Heller and Veronique Vienne.
In 2006, her photographs from "Body Type" were exhibited at Cooper Union's Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography and in 2007, at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center's Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art.
Ina was the Design Director at Time Magazine (International Editions), Worth Magazine, and other magazines including Golf Magazine, Golf for Women Magazine, and Worldbusiness Magazine, and has consulted at Business Week and Consumer Reports. With her occasional collaborator, Donald Partyka, Ina designed a prototype for a new magazine for "policy wonks" called "The Americas Quarterly, for the Council of the Americas; AQ launched in 2007.
Ina is on the design faculty of the Stanford Publishing Course, and she has also taught "virtually" for Stanford via webcast. Ina frequently lectures on topics related to magazine design and typography, including, most recently, in Toronto, Atlanta, Denver, San Jose, Moscow and Amsterdam. In 2010 she will be presenting her lectures on editorial design in Calgary.
Ina was one of the first art directors to work on a computer in 1981 at Time Inc's Teletext Project, a precursor of the web.
Ina received a BFA from Cooper Union in New York City; her lifelong love of letterforms intensified there when she studied calligraphy with Don Kunz. Among her calligraphic teachers and mentors are Hermann Zapf and Donald Jackson.
Ina has chaired, co-chaired and judged numerous design, typography and photography competitions: the National Magazine Awards, AIGA, the Society of Publication Designers, and the Type Directors Club, the Ozzies, the City and Regional Magazine Association, and others.
This review is from: Typography Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Working with Type (Hardcover)
You can never learn too much about typography. When designers ask me what I recommend for them to improve their craft, I always tell them to study type, take a type class, or buy a type book. Now thanks to Ina Saltz, all I have to do is tell them to buy a copy of Typography Essentials. So many books deal with either the form or function of typography; this one fuses both perfectly. With its elegant system of presentation and organization, strong visual examples, and a sense of both art and science, Typography Essentials is the one book that no graphic designer should be without. It's just that good. Most importantly, it's typography for the working designer, type meant to work, to inform, to engage, to function. Get a copy of this book for yourself immediately, and give one as a holiday present to your favorite art director.
About me: I've been a publication art director for 30 years, have art directed Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, Real Simple, Vibe, New York, Details, and many more.
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This review is from: Typography Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Working with Type (Hardcover)
If essential means containing the essence, then the title of this book captures its content. Typography Essentials does more than communicate the principles that are absolutely necessary to the creation of attractive and readable text. It illustrates them with exceptional contemporary examples. From stalwarts like The New York Times to supermarket check-out magazines, and from wine bottle labels to a book on tantric sex, the author presents effective and eye-catching uses of type.
Not just for beginners, this manual informs anyone who uses type for any purpose. I have been working with type for fifty years, and was riveted by some of the notions that are presented. More exciting for me than the examples that follow the rules are the successful ones that break them. It has already changed the way I look at a page. This book has 100 clearly defined subject headings like "Properly Weighted Small caps and Fractions" and suggestive ones like "Chaos Versus Order." Each delivers a concise, easy to understand conceptual message, and the superb specimens make it impossible to miss the point.
Typography Essentials should sit on your shelf next to Robert Bringhurst's classic, The Elements of Typographic Style.
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This review is from: Typography Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Working with Type (Hardcover)
Typography Essentials is a must-have companion for anyone who cares about type--from the experienced pro to the beginning student. The book is cleverly organized by the myriad of ways one can think about letterforms accompanied by eye-stopping current examples to prove it. The text is smooth and clear with insightful thoughts on how to use type to solve graphic problems.
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