The Fundamentals of Typography

Gavin Ambrose is a practising graphic designer whose client base includes the arts sector, galleries, publishers and advertising agencies. He has written and designed several books on graphic design, branding and packaging. Paul Harris studied at the London College of Communication and has gone on to become a freelance writer and editor. His work has appeared extensively in magazines and journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including style bible Dazed & Confused.

Introduction. How to get the most out of this book. A brief history: The history of type; Cuneiform tablets; Hieroglyphs; Ideogram-based languages; Phoenician characters; The Greek alphabet. Cyrillic languages; Semitic and Aramatic languages; The Roman alphabet; The modern alphabet; Moveable type, 1436; The effect of printing in Europe; The Industrial Revolution, 1800's; Arts and Crafts Movement, 1850s; Modernism, 1910; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s; Graphic design since 2000. A few basics: Typefaces and fonts; Typeface anatomy; Relative and absolute measurements; X-height; Basic terminology; Majuscule and minuscule; Set width; Baseline grid; The golden section; Fibonacci sequence; Standard paper sizes; The page - how we read; Dividing the page. Letterforms: Type families; Typeweight variations; Frutiger's grid; Types of serif; Fractions; Superscript and subscript; Numerals; Punctuation; Diacritical marks; Dashes; Character spacing; Expert sets and special characters; Ligatures, dipthongs and sans serif logotypes; Drop and standing capitals; Small capitals (true and false); Italic and oblique; Type classification systems; Type classification in practice; Newspaper text faces. Words and paragraphs: Calculating line lengths; Kerning and letterspacing; Automated kerning tables; Alignment; Word spacing, hyphenation and justification; Type detailing; Leading; Indents; Indexes; Type size; Display type; Reversing type; Wraps and runarounds. Using type: Hierarchy; Colour; Surprint, overprint and knockout; Printing and type realisation; Type on screen; Grids and fonts; Generating type; Legibility and readability; Texture; Type as image; Concrete poetry, typograms, trompe l'oeil and calligrammes; Type in the environment; Scale; Vernacular; Appropriation; Typographic democracy; Ownership. Proof marks. Conclusion. Contacts. Glossary. Index. Font index.