Here below you will find a reading list, containing classics of the literature about type design and typography, but also other texts which could help you during your studies at ECAL. This list contains three categories of texts:
— on this page, a first series which is compulsory to read before the start of the term;
— on the following pages, a second group of texts, whose reading is not compulsory but highly recommended during your studies;
Many of them are available at ECAL library: reference [between brackets]
[Grau eingefärbte Publikationen befinden sich bereits in meinem Besitz :—)]
I. MANDATORY
TYPE DESIGN
Beier (Sofie), Type tricks; your personal guide to type design, BIS Publishers, 2017 [DG37.2–14126].
Handbook about many recurring issues when creating letters.
Olocco (Riccardo) & Patanè (Michele), Designing type revivals: handbook for a historical approach to typeface design, Lazy Dog Press, 2022 [DG37.6–25200].
Type design operates within a rich history, in which the notion of revival is crucial.
Popova (Yulia), How many female type designers do you know?, Onomatopee, 2020.
There is much more type design happening than we might be aware of, reading ‘classics’ of typographic history...
TYPESETTING
Bringhurst (Robert), The elements of typographic style, Hartley & Marks, 1992 [DG37.6–10425]. French: Principes élémentaires de la typographie [DG37.2–25598].
This manual of typesetting contains all needed informations for a good typographic layout. Traditional rather than modern, but full of knowledge.
Hochuli (Jost), Das Detail in der Typografie, Niggli, 2005.
English: Detail in typography [DG37.2–19658]. French: Le détail en typographie [DG37.2–11565].
How to set typography precisely. Small and precious hand book.
PROOF READING
New Oxford style manual, Oxford University Press, 2016.
Several editions available, including digital online version. Handbook for correct formatting and styling. Not to read, but to have on your desk. Other standards are good – but no need to have them all.
American: The Chicago manual of style, University of Chicago Press, 1993 [DG36–16578]. French: Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l’Imprimerie nationale, IN, 2002 [DG37.2–16253]. Swiss-French: Guide du typographe, Association des typographes romands, 2015 [DG37.2–16283].
ESSAY ON DESIGN
Potter (Norman), What is a designer: things, places, messages, Hyphen Press, 2002 [DI11–10423]. French: Qu’est-ce qu’un designer [DI11 – 13414].
‘What is a designer? Is a designer an artist? What is good design?’, etc.
II. RECOMMENDED
TYPE DESIGN
Ahrens (Tim) & Mugikura (Shoko), Size-specific adjustments to type designs: an investigation of the principles guiding the design of optical sizes, Just Another Foundry, 2014 [DG37.2–19797].
How to design fonts with optical sizes.
Goudy (Frederic W.), The alphabet and elements of lettering, Dover, 1963 [DG37.2–17366].
The basics of type design explained simply and plainly, without showing off.
Hurka (Céline) & Békés (Nóra), Reviving Type, Acute Publishing, 2019. Discussion about methods in reading and interpreting historical sources.
Jury (David), About face: reviving the rules of typography, Rotovision, 2004.
A handbook about basic principles in typography. This text is particularly interesting if you are not familiar with Latin-script.
Kinross (Robin), Modern typography: an essay in critical history, Hyphen Press, 1994 [DG37.6–8950]. French: La typographie moderne [DG37.2–13418].
The story of typography, with inputs about ideas, social context, and techniques.
Morison (Stanley), First principles of typography, Macmillan, 1936.
A short essay, dogmatic and sharp, by the Pope of British type. Still interesting, but needs a critical mind.
Smeijers (Fred), Counterpunch: making type in the 16th century, designing typefaces now, Hyphen Press, 1996 [DG37.6–8951]. French: Le contrepoinçon, fabriquer des lettres au xvie siècle, dessiner des familles de caractères aujourd’hui [DG37.2–15394].
How technical issues shaped Latin typography as we now it today. Making type, from the beginning, involved material questions which influenced the design.
Unger (Gerard), Theory of Type Design, 010 publishers, Amsterdam, 2018 [DG37.2–19409].
A comprehensive analyse of letterforms, their design and construction.
Wittner (Ben), Thoma (Sascha) & Hartmann (Timm), eds., Bi-Scriptual: Typography and Graphic Design with Multiple Script Systems, Niggli, 2018 [DG37.3–19408].
Considerations about making (and using) typefaces across writing systems: habits, conventions, cultures, technical and practical problems.
TECHNIQUE
Southall (Richard), Printer’s Type in the 20th Century: Manufacturing and Design Methods, Oak Knoll, New Castle, 2005 [DG37.2–20715].
If you are interested in technical issues of designing type, this book can be an eye opener.
NEUROSCIENCE
Dehaene (Stanislas), Les neurones de la lecture, Odile Jacob, 2007 [DG11–10887]. English: Reading in the brain: the new science of how we read.
As stated in the title: what happen in our brain when we read. What makes a text legible? Hence, how to shape letterforms efficiently.
CALLIGRAPHY
Billeter ( Jean-François), Essai sur l’art chinois de l’écriture et ses fondements, Skira, 1989. English: The Chinese art of Writing.
In French, prefer the revised reprint of 2001. Although about Chinese script, it tells a lot about rhythm, movements and the body, questions which can be applied to other scripts as well, including Latin.
Noordzij (Gerrit), De streek: theorie van het schrift, Van de Garde, 1985. English: The stroke: theory of writing [DG37.2–10835]. French: Le trait: une théorie de l’écriture [DG37.1–11839].
How strokes and writing shape the letterforms. A book to read slowly and carefully, as it is immensely dense and rich of knowledge.
Noordzij (Gerrit), Letterletter: an inconsistent collection of tentative theories that do not claim any other authority than that of common sense, Hartley & Marks, 2000 [DG37.2–16571].
Essays by a master calligrapher from the Dutch tradition.
WRITING
Bell (Susan), The artful edit: on the practice of editing yourself, W.W. Norton & Co, 2008.
A very practical book when it comes to write a Thesis.
Williams (Gilda), How to write about contemporary art, Thames & Hudson, 2014.
The emphasis is on art, but a lot of the principles and techniques are transferable to writing about design, type and typography.
THINKING GOOD
Bernays (Edward), Propaganda, the public mind in the making, Horace Liveright, 1928. French: [CG159.925–11267].
‘Father of public relations’, Edward Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and expert in the ‘engineering of consent’. How to lie, cheat and manipulate for convincing people. Or: how to not be fooled by texts and images.
Choi (Binna), Krauss (Annette), van der Heide (Yolande), Allan (Liz), eds., Unlearning Exercises: Art Organizations as Sites for Unlearning, Valiz / Casco, 2018.
We need to be aware of what we are learning, and why we are learning those things – which structures, powers, cultures and biases have shaped our curricula and canons.
Vis (Dirk), Research for People Who (Think They) Would Rather Create, Onomatopee, 2021.
The title says it all.
HISTORY: TYPE
Cortat (Matthieu) & Fornari (Davide), eds., Archigraphiae, Rationalist Lettering and Architecture in Fascist Rome / Architettura e iscrizioni razionaliste nella Roma fascista, ECAL, 2020 [DG37.6–22241].
How a modernist avatar of the Roman Capital letter was turned into a tool for propaganda by the Italian Fascist Regime (1922–1943), and how the Italian graphic and type design scene was reacting to the New Typography and typographic modernism.
Mager (Simon), Words Form Language, Triest, 2021 [DG9GOMR–23536].
A dive into the life and work of the concrete poet Eugen Gomringer (b. 1925). This research project and publication started as a Master Thesis at ECAL Master Type Design.
Middendorp ( Jan), Dutch type, 010 Publishers, 2004 [DG37.5 – 8680].
A survey of type history in a country with a rich and strong tradition.
Mosley (James), The nymph and the grot: the revival of the sanserif letter, Friends of the St Bride Printing Library, 1999 [DG37.3–17374].
The origin of the sans serif, linked with history of art and architecture.
Osterer (Heidrun), Stamm (Philipp), eds., Adrian Frutiger: typefaces: the complete works, Birkhäuser, 2009 [DG9FRUT–10380].
To go deep in the works of a Swiss master.
Updike (Daniel Berkeley), Printing types: their history, forms, and use, Harvard University Press, 1922.
There is a reprint by Oak Noll Press, or you can find it online on archive.org. This book discusses the evolution of type from Gutenberg to William Morris. It’s a hefty tome but will give you a good insight into typographic and social European history.
ESSAYS ON TYPE
Kinross (Robin), Unjustified texts: perspectives on typography, Hyphen Press, 2011 [DG37.6–10411].
Twenty-five years of publications and articles. ‘In short, a nice book to read and the perfect antidote to all those slick design books’ (Mathieu Lommen).
Tschichold (Jan), Die Neue Typographie: ein Handbuch für zeitgemäß Schaffende, Bildungs- verbandes der Deutschen Buchdrucker, 1928 [DG37.2–5116]. English: The new typography [DG37.2–6102]. French: La nouvelle typographie [DG37.2–17546].
Manifesto for a modern typography, by an energetic young Tschichold.
Tschichold ( Jan), Ausgewählte Aufsätze über Fragen der Gestalt des Buches und der Typographie, Birkhäuser, 1975. French: Livre et typographie [DG37.2 – 4846].
In the second part of his life, Tschichold completely changed his opinion, in favour of traditionalism, the centred composition, serif fonts. He is opinionated in both options.
HISTORY: SCRIPTS
Born (Julia), Cortat (Matthieu) & Kiraz (George Anton), eds., Aram, ECAL, 2022. [DG37.1–24045]
Syriac script is in danger. The majority of its users lives now as refugees spread around the world. How will the script evolve? How designers could contribute to its survival? What are the questions that are at work in the contemporary type design scene?
Calvet (Louis-Jean), Histoire de l’écriture, Plon, 1996.
Complete yet short history of writing. An good English equivalent could be Donald Jackson, The Story of Writing, Studio Vista, The Parker Pen Company, 1981 [DG37.1 – 20549].
HISTORY: LITERACY
Canfora (Luciano), Il copista come autore, Sellerio, 2002. French: Le copiste comme auteur [DG 20546].
Texts from the Antiquity and the Middle Age did not come to us genuinely. Copyists produced them, adding elements, removing others, changing sentences, hence shaping what we consider ‘classics’. Could the relations between writers and copyists be compared with today authors and designers?
Greenblatt (Stephen), The swerve: how the world became modern, Norton & Co, 2011 [AV63–20547]. French: Quattrocento [DG36.1–20548].
The wonderful story of Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459), who did find the only surviving copy of De Rerum Natura by Lucretius, and spread it among scholars, as well as his new humanistic script, later turned into type and today known as... Roman.
Martin (Henri-Jean), Histoire et pouvoirs de l’écrit, Albin Michel, 1988 (reprint 1996) [DG37.1– 16573].
Our culture is based on the written word. This book tell the story of the mental and technical evolutions which shaped our relation with letters.
Ong (Walter), Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word, Psychology Press, 1982. French: Oralité et écriture [DG37.1 – 17384].
This classic work explores the differences between oral and literate cultures. It offers an account of the intellectual and social effects of writing, print and electronic technology.
HISTORY: GRAPHIC DESIGN
Fanni (Maryam), Flodmark (Matilda) & Kaaman (Sara), Natural Enemies of Books: A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography, Occasional Papers, 2020 [DG37.4– 20813].
Not only are type and typography historically male-dominated fields, but women’s contributions and ideas have historically been disregarded, discounted or erased.
Gardey (Delphine), Écrire, calculer, classer: comment une révolution de papier a transformé les sociétés contemporaines (1800–1940), La Découverte, 2008.
A German translation is also available. Tachygraphic and calculating machines, typewriters, office stationery: some simple inventions changed our conception of the printed page. A study of ‘forgotten’ items: no trendy posters, no classy books, no widespread magazines,
but administrative papers: where a huge part of typography is actually in use.
Jury (David), Graphic design before graphic designers: the printer as designer and craftsman (1700–1914), Thames & Hudson, 2012 [DG60–16575].
The decade 1880 is generally presented as the moment when graphic designers emerged as a topical figure in the printing history. This book shows the steps which led to the work division we still know nowadays.
Jubert (Roxane), Graphisme, typographie, histoire, Flammarion, 2005 [DG60–9442]. English: Typography and graphic design: from antiquity to the present.
A well-written general history of graphic design.
HISTORY: DIGITAL
Stock-Allen (Nancy), Carol Twombly: Her Brief but Brilliant Career in Type Design, Oak Knoll Press, New Castle, 2016 [DG–17385].
A ‘type nerd’ book indeed, but well written, with a good insight of digital type of the heroic age.
PROOF READING
Lacroux (Jean-Pierre), Orthotypo, Quintette, 2011 [DG37.2–16577].
Online version at www.orthotypographie.fr. There are different ‘rules’ about type setting, depending on the reference book you use. This definitely nerdy book compare and analyse several historical French type manuals before giving its own solution.
LINGUISTICS
Deutscher (Guy), Through the language glass: why the world looks different in other languages, Picador, 2011.
This book dives deep into the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or ‘linguistic relativity’, which says that the language we speak affect how we think. So does the letters we read?
Klemperer (Victor), Lingua tertii imperii: Notizbuch eines Philologen, Aufbau-Verlag, 1947. French: LTI, la langue du troisième Reich [CG43 – 17383].
As a philologist, Klemperer carefully noted all the changes in the German language under the influence of the Nazis during the Third Reich. He analyses how new concepts (as legitimate mass murder) can be spread into a society by slow moves in the vocabulary.
DESIGN & SOCIETY
Constanza-Chock (Sasha), Design Justice, MIT Press, 2020.
How to make design that is socially responsible and inclusive.
Graeber (David), Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, Simon & Schuster, 2018. Good for anybody thinking about their professional life.
Judah (Hettie), How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents), Lund Humphries, 2022.
How to shape a culture (design, working) to be socially responsible and inclusive, but through the micro-lens of being a parent in the art world.
Lorey (Isabell), Die Regierung der Prekären, 2012. English: State of Insecurity.
Why are we so precarious? Is it maybe by design? (oh... rhetorical question)
Lorusso (Silvio). Entreprecariat, Onomatopee, 2019.
How can the individual design profes- sional survive in times of late capitalist precarisation, increasing replaceability, etc.
Lorusso (Silvio), What Design Can’t Do. Essays on Design and Disillusion, Set Margins, 2023.
How to deal with the disillusionment when we learn that design will not, in fact, save the world.
Papanek (Victor), Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, Pantheon Books 1971. French: Design pour un monde réel : écologie humaine et changement social [DI71– 793].
A classic.
MISCELLANEOUS
Bayard (Pierre), Comment parler des livres que l’on n’a pas lus?, Minuit, 2007. English: How to talk about books you haven’t read?
Don’t try to fool your teachers with your Thesis. Or do it cleverly. (By the way, the whole work of Pierre Bayard is just brilliant!)
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