Webworks: Typography [Paperback]

Jason Mills (Author), Daniel Donnelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999 | Series: Webworks

There's more to type than meets the eye. Just take a surf on the Web. Typeface designers are marketing their fonts on the WorldWide Web, going beyond the limits imposed by print advertising, direct mail marketing or even HTML.

Besides creating outrageous new digital fonts, these typographer are developing new graphic text treatments that don't waste visitors' time with slow downloads for their online catalogs and e-zines. Featuring some of the most imaginative stars on the Web and in the expanding world of type design, experts share their tricks and techniques in this essential sourcebook for creating dazzling typefaces and Websites.

A companion CD-ROM offers royalty-free type, plus links to hundreds of typography related Websites.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Web Site Graphics: Typography—A discriminating collection, this array of masterful type-design treatments includes type fonts custom-made for the job, elegant and classic fonts stretching traditional boundaries, and mod and retry type. Learn how to stretch, alter, and successfully use type in place for any web design assignment.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction; Words are the building blocks of modern communication. Whether these groups of letterforms are presented in print, broadcast, or on the Web, a typeface is selected to visually enhance - or to facilitate the conveyance of - each word's message. Fonts can communicate as much as the words they form.

Today, type designers face new advantages and challenges posed by technological advances in typeface design. Just about anyone with enough imagination and computer skill can create a digitized font (and a few can create outstanding fonts). Consequently, the typographer's primary task - the selection of the perfect typeface to convey a given message - has become more difficult. There are now thousands of digitized fonts offered by a diverse range of talent on Web sites and in printed catalogs. Prices for typefaces, dingbats, and ornaments can range from minimal (such as freeware or shareware) to extravagant (a proprietary typeface can command thousands of dollars).

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Rockport Publishers (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564965198
• ISBN-13: 978-1564965196
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,400,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Daniel Donnelly is the Chair of the Digital Art and Design program at Butte College located in northern California. He has designed and authored nine design books for Rockport Publishers, including "In Your Face: The Best of Interactive Interface Designs", and seven other books focused on typography, Flash animation, and interface design.

Donnelly's most recent design book-"999 Logo Design Elements"-features 999 royalty-free vector-based elements that can be used to create original logos.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating, February 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Webworks: Typography (Paperback)

This book is a very visual account of what is on the cutting edge of typography today. Vivid colors and interesting layouts provide readers with a real "feel" for how the typographers use their designs for special effects. The authors of this book had a real eye for the true artists in typography. A great book for people who are interested in designing their own work or for those just looking for new and interesting contributors to this unique field.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars mostly uninspired faddish typography., September 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Webworks: Typography (Paperback)

This book is filled with typography design that seems to have evolved with no knowledge of the past histoy of typographic design. Some of the comments made by the designers had some value, but the examples of their work didn't always match their jargon.The book is boring, uninspiring and I returned my copy. Save your money. There are better books out there.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A self-indulgent excercise in graphic design., June 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Webworks: Typography (Paperback)

I'm relieved that I only checked this book out out from the libraray instead of dropping almost $50 to purchase it. While it purports to discuss typography, it's clear even from the table of contents - and certainly from the body of the book - that "Webworks: Typography" is largely an excercise in graphic design. And even the graphic design fails on its most basic level, that of coherance.

The book is made up of several mini-sections, each one devoted to a different web-available foundry. Six examples of each foundry's typefaces are presented in tiny boxes at the bottoms of the pages. The remaining 95% of the space is devoted to overwrought images and mutilated text relating each foundry's approach to typography.

It's barely comprehensible. Think of the worst example of fast MTV video-editing on paper. That's how this book is designed. There is a predilection for web design here, and clearly this is a book was created by and for young people with very little reverance for text. Judging by the samples in the book, many of these foundries are even trying to turn the letters we use for text into flashy monuments of their creativity. Nevermind the actual words, I guess.

I found two nice foundries in the book, not surprisingly both are situated in Europe, where there appears to be a stronger comprehension of the the concept of text legibility.