In the early eighties Aaron Burns, boss of the International Typeface Corporation suggested to Ed Gottschall the idea for this book. It was published in 1989 which will give you an idea of how long this monumental type study took to produce. To sum up twentieth-century typography in one book would seem a project too far but I think Ed Gottschall has succeeded. He managed to capture the typographic feel of Europe in the early years of the last century and then brought it up to date (at least to the mid-eighties) with typography in America, Europe and the Far East. Incidentally, the early years include the inputs of European fine arts and the Bauhaus.
The book is actually in three parts, the history of typographic design to the Seventies then there is a long section dealing with the construction of typefaces and the beginnings of computer setting followed by the final section on typographic design from 1970. It is basically a visual book, handsomely designed by Mo Lebowitz, with hundreds of color and black and white illustrations. I think it is worth saying that this is not a design problem-solving book in the practical sense but a stimulating history of type and how designers used letterforms to communicate ideas over past decades.
If you work in the creative design areas of print this book will certainly interest you. Incidentally, it's worth searching around the net for some inexpensive copies.
Typographic Communications Today by Gottschall, Edward M. (1989) Hardcover: Amazon.co.uk: Books
No comments:
Post a Comment