books

Recently I have gotten old and 'wise' enough to start buying good books.

This list is not comprehensive, but it is a nice subset.

toc:

About

Design books are half pornographic and half nonsensical. In the right context, a design book book looks like nothing more than a very pretty picture book and the other time it is pure genius! I never quite understood this concept until i read enough design books. I now understand the raison d'etre in a bizzarely uncertain capacity. However, like art books, design books are only good if they resonate with you. These books have all resonated with me in a magic way.

I divide my books on design in two categories, typography and design. These are fairly broad categories and the best of the books i own transcend these categories, although i try to place them in the realm they are probably most comfortable in.

Typography

Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style is my first and still favorite book about letters. It is half about the design of a good book and it is half about the use of letters. While it does prescribe methods and strategies, it attempts to balance the strict nature of typography with its underlying artistry. The book is both abstract and precise in equally useful parts and serves as an excellent guide for the aspiring typographer.

Eric Gill's Essay on Typography is a different ballpark than Bringhurst's. It will not explicitly teach you anything about type in the traditional way you may be familiar with. Instead, Gill focuses on a bit of history, a bit of pedagogy and so forth. This book reads as a treatise on who and what is responsible for type and some intimate thoughts on tangentially related topics. Read this not for instruction as much as historical insight.

Steven Heller's Education of a Typographer is a novel concept. Much like emigre's magazine the book collects essays, curricula and so forth from typographers, designers and other people in the field. The book is ambitious and refreshing. It will half speak to you and it will half enrage you. Because these ideas vary so much, it is often interesting to see who emphasizes what and who resonates with your opinions.

Design

As much as i love typography, i eventually cave and buy a design book in the mal-formed hope that i will glean a pearl of wisdom from it through osmosis or by direct copying. Because these books are so random in their 'goodness,' (from lame to gorgeous) i will describe them as best i can so you get the right impression.

Derek Birdsall's Notes on Book Design is amazing. It is amazing for two reasons: it is gorgeously designed and it is amazingly practical. I do not normally come across a book that manages to succeed at combining the two of those qualities. What seals the deal is his truly no nonsense approach to things. He does this without completely removing the magic from any of his pieces, so while everything is out for inspection, he manages to still show that there is still something artistic about what he has done. Effectively, the book serves as a friendly reminder of all the things one is prone to forget when undertaking a book. This book covers a bit of typography in its own right, but does not exclusively focus on it.

Kimberly Elam has twice reinvigorated my love for design. I bought first her Grid Systems book and fell in love. The book, for me brought design away from the computer and back to paper, but gave me the mechanics and thought process needed to do so effectively. There are some faults, though. The book benefits from a good teacher or someone that will encourage you to explore your own design skills. Without the motivation or constructive and guiding hand, the book loses some serious steam. Try it on, but have a friend handy that you can learn with.

The second of Elam's books (first chronologically) is called The Geometry of Design. It is less obviously a textbook but lacks none of the charm of Grid Systems. It was this book that encouraged me to buy a compass and ruler and re-learn the art of constructions. The book is fun to skim and neat to follow along with.

Paired with Grid Systems, you feel ready to undertake a small design task in the 'right' way. The books aren't exactly how-to books, they're more abstract than that. They're both historical but also practical. You can take from them as much as you want and the vellum overlays are both useful and fun to play with.

Recently i had a stroke of luck. I stumbled across Josef Alber's Intereaction of Color at Border's and snapped it up.