This book should be required reading for every graphic designer, book designer, typographer and certainly anyone directly or indirectly responsible for unleashing the current wave of awful typography on an unsuspecting public. Bringhurst covers everything from the basics of type styles to advanced kerning principles to the finer points of page proportions, all in a succint yet engaging way.

Bringhurst does an excellent job of laying out a series of rules and guidelines, while making it clear that these are a starting point, a foundation for good type design, not a set of limitations. He is a poet as well as a typographer, and his eloquence pays tribute to the field as no one else has.

The book features a good deal on the evolution of typography and includes great side-by-side comparisons of typefaces to illustrate specific points. He also deals extensively with punctuation marks, diacritics and the duty/joy of designing type with languages other than English in mind. I find myself returning again and again to the section on the subtleties of page proportions. He also achieves the nearly impossible balance of singing the praises of the old masters while not being afraid of the best of what's new and experimental.

How can I possibly only give this work five stars? Robert Bringhurst's "Elements of Typographic Style" is more than a list of prescriptions. It is a definitive reference which explores the history behind typography, and uses that history to explain in its clear, lucid way why rules exist. Where the antiquated rules have no practical basis, Bringhurst is quick to dispell their necessity - but he neither dismisses them nor rejects them.

The visual beauty of this book is apparent upon opening it - it is a model of all it preaches. It addresses ongoing issues of basic formatting and page shaping, but also modern needs such as setting more than one language in one text - including those that read right to left (e.g., Arabic scripts). The simple yet elegant writing style makes reading this work a pleasure in itself. Anyone who deals with type - and this now means most everyone - should read this book; its advice is complementary, or even superior, to a style manual.

The Amazon editorial above lays out its sections, and as that shows, the book covers the full breadth of modern typography and page composition.

I strongly recommend this book. It is an honour to read it.

In this book, Robert Bringhurst welcomes us into his world of typography, gently showing us how to approach typesetting problems, how to select fonts, how to conceive of a page and the like. He also describes how historical reality should be taken into account in the design, as well as giving a detailed description of the history and style of many, many typefaces. The book is written with great passion, and contains very sound advice. This book is a must for anyone seriously trying to create a beautiful, readable book.

The book is a great source of information. The 4 (not 5) stars is given cause the book is filled with postscript errors (missing letters, ligatures replaced by spaces, accented glyphs...). Disapointing for a book about typography.

Among graphic designers, one of the finest, most popular books in recent years is Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style (Hartley & Marks, 1992). In this book, Bringhurst revisits a classic history of typography, publication design and printing techniques that was originally produced in 1970 by Chappell (1904-1991), a book designer, illustrator and author who had studied with Rudolf Koch. Of eleven highly readable chapters, all were written by Chappell, with the exception of the last on "The Digital Revolution and the Close of the Twentieth Century." Why reissue Chappell's book? As Bringhurst explains in the preface, "He knew some of the things that historians know, but mostly he knew what historians don't know. I wanted the names and dates set straight, insofar as possible, and yet to hear the story told as Chappell told it, from a workbench rather than a keyboard, with silences in place of self-advertisements, and graver marks and acid stains in place of any footnotes." (Review copyright 2000 by Roy R. Behrens from Ballast Quarterly Review 15, No. 4, Summer.)

A thoroughly enjoyable read on the people, places, and things that make up the history of type and publishing. Warren Chappell's book was revised and appended by noted author Robert Bringhurst and this book is the perfect complement to Bringhurst's own "Elements of Typographic Style". The content is alive with names, significant facts, technological contributions, and lots of good illustrations. This is an amazing book that is well-written and historically significant, and the authors fill in all of the gaps on the history of type and printing. The short history they describe is concise and thorough. The only disappointment is Bringhurst's final chapter on "The Digital Evolution and the Close of the Twentieth Century", where he completely overlooks the significant contributions of the people and technologies in the digital age and opts instead to explore the work of a few small private presses. Also, how can one brief summary chapter hope to describe the accomplishments of the last thirty years? Sadly, Bringhurst missed a real opportunity to provide a keen insight on the digital revolution and its impact on the printed word. All the same, this is a "must have" book for typographers, type designers, and typophiles.

I grew up in the pacific north-west and experienced many of these stories as a child. This was a wonderful book to bring back most of those memories. It is well written. Simple yet engaging. Once I started I couldn't put it down. I've since used it as a teaching resourse in social studies and will be ordering other copies for fellow teachers I've shown it to and were equally impressed. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in native legends or mythology.

I brought this book on a trip to Vancouver and Victoria and read it in the evenings after returning to my hotels. As a European American, I found it indispensable to understanding much of the art I saw on vacation (especially Totem Poles). This book relates many of the best known Haida stories, including those of the noble, tragic Bear; the intrepid, versatile human fisherman-hunter Nanasigmit and above all the amoral but always fascinating Raven. Almost all the stories are simple, yet strike a deep chord. Add this to "Looking at Totem Poles" and "Kwakuitl Legends", both also reasonably priced, and you'll be well on your way to understanding the basics of First Nations culture.

The views are a little old fashioned for me. Mr Tschichold is very much of the old school. He expounds many "rules" of book design, but most of these are his personal taste, and are presented in a high-handed, dictatorial, and condescending tone. There is no room whatsoever for creativity in book design in his view, instead all books must follow his design.

Useful for reminding us of some of the core principles of typography and book design, but if all publishers agreed with the author's views, the book world would be a very boring place. I would like to see a debate between Jan Tschichold and David Carson!!

there is little to say other than the fact that this book is essential reading for all current and aspiring book designers. Tschichold's views seem limiting at first, but his knowledge is based on years of careful research into the basis of our written culture. many will choose to deviate from his instruction in small or great ways, but to practice the craft of book typography (or typography in general) without this information would be unwise.

This collection of 23 essays on book design and typography should be read at least once by all typographers and students of design. Written over a period spanning 42 years, these essays cover many aspects of typography from paper color to tight typesetting to page proportions. A few of the ideas presented in the essays may indeed be outdated now (due mainly to the economic freedoms in modern digital design), but they are few and are still important from an historical persective. Folloowing the rules of design presented here will help ensure a well designed book that does not detract from the contents in any way and best serves to allow that content to speak for itself. Even if you want to always break the rules of design, isn't it better to understand why and how those rules came to be? Of interesting note is that Jan himself was in his youth a radical rulebreaker in his designs, but he learned when it was best to work inside and outside the rules to present the best effect, his design legacy shows how effective he was, and how influencial he remains to this day.

Anyone who knows and loves the work of Haida artist, Bill Reid, will be fascinated by this behind-the-scenes account of the modelling and casting of 'Spirit of Haida Gwai'. Modelled first in clay, then cast in sections into bronze, the completed work is an enormous canoe full of figures from the mythology of the Haida Indians of the Northwest Coast of North America. The figures of the Eagle, the Raven, Bear Mother, Mouse Woman and Dogfish Woman are exquisitely carved in a style which is unmistakably that of the Northwest Coast, yet it also has a distinctly contemporary feel that reflects Reid's ability to draw upon his heritage while remaining creative and original in his work. The construction process is documented in detail with over eighty black and white photographs, while the text explores the symbolism and meaning of these tantalising figures from Haida mythology who share the canoe and a common cultural ancestry. The making of this wonderful sculpture must surely be one of the greatest achievements of Reid's long and successful career as a highly talented and original sculptor and jeweller. For those who know Reid's work this book is a must, providing a fascinating record of his working methods. For those who have not yet encountered Reid's work, this book provides a golden opportunity to meet some of the characters which dominate his work. All will marvel at Bill Reid's skill as a sculptor in producing this beautiful, immense, and impressive piece of work, a process which has been beautifully and sensitively recorded in the pages of this book. (Reviewed by M.Simpson

Good mythtelling is poetry of the highest order, and it takes a poet to translate it. Robert Bringhurst's renderings of the verbal masterpieces of classical Haida storytellers are truly astounding, as it is his reconstruction of the facts surrounding their collection by American anthropologist John Swanton. As someone who works in the same field I must say that this book has been a great discovery for me. It is an example to follow, both in the style of the translations and in the wide range of the commentary.