The Elements of Typographic Style: Version 4.0 - Celebrating 20 Years of Excellence

MT: Wenn man nur ein Buch über Typografie lesen möchte – dann dieses.

Germany on Apr 01, 2023

Liam A.: Book looks fine. The cover just has a slight bend and it has a dinged corner on the the top right of the front cover. Would give it 5-stars if the ding was on the back.

United States on Sep 01, 2021

Nicolò: Un libro che ogni tipografo, grafico o designer dovrebbe avere. Grazie alla quantità e qualità dei contenuti permette di applicare tutte le regole di buona tipografia non solo per imitazione, ma per comprensione. Spiegati magistralmente e assorbiti questi concetti verranno applicati nella vita reale in maniera naturale, come respirare.
Una vera bibbia della tipografia.

Italy on Feb 07, 2021

Martin Krzywinski: This is the most perfect book about typography. It approaches letters from a historical and impassioned perspective -- the author is also a poet.

Section headers are heart-felt imperatives, such as "1.1.2 Letters have a life and dignity of their own".

The book answers typical questions like font pairing and text layout in the context of fundamental concepts of the geometry of letters and the page. Chapter 8 is perhaps the most fascinating -- "Shaping the Page" -- in which Bringhurst compares proportions of the page to musical scales.

If you wish to ascend beyond "font nazi" to "type lover and geek" this is the book for you.

You can pry my copy from my cold dead hands.

Canada on Dec 25, 2020

Bruce Momjian: I just bought the paperback version. It is version 4.3 and is longer than previous versions. The paper doesn't have the thinness problem reported about version 4.2. From the images, it seems the hardback version is only 4.0. I recommend purchase of the 4.3 paperback version of this book.

United States on Jun 25, 2020

the-librarian: This is an absolutely fantastic book about the history and practice of typography. I love it so much this is the second copy I’ve purchased so I can have one at home and one in my office at work. It is well-written, fascinating, well-researched, and offers deep insights into improving the typography and readability of any document you create.

Using the techniques outlined in this book I have been able to create professional documents that are more persuasive in a business setting because they look nice and are easy to read. After reading this book you will begin to notice the impact of typography all around you and take notice of how you can make better documents.

United States on Oct 19, 2019

Vijay RathinasamyVijay Rathinasamy: This book is really informative for those getting into the typographic business, demonstrating good ettiquette in the myriad niceties involved (even in the matter of page size and layout). There's also a handy index for extended characters for type designers, especially the Cyrillic italics which can be obtuse for those used to Latin regularity. The only downside is that it's a bit dated in the face of new font technology. Otherwise, definitely a must-have for graphic designers!

United States on Aug 23, 2018

David Irving: This is a book that really helped pique my interest in typography back when the first edition was published. I was actually looking to buy Bringhurst's forthcoming book about Palatino, but did not find it on the Amazon site. This was a first for me. Not finding anything on Amazon. I was able to order the Bringhurst book directly from the Book Club of California. I liked Elements enough that when I noticed the forthcoming title, I looked to buy it. Robert Bringhurst is also a published poet, by the way. I find that writers with strong backgrounds in poetry tend to write well and seem to love words and type as much as I do. I bought this 20th anniversary edition to back up my wearing out early edition.

United States on Apr 25, 2016

Mr CPG Lamming: Having read the fine reviews of this book, I took a punt and chose it along with a few other similar titles, to learn about typography in a little more depth.

I was not at all expecting to find that this book is in fact a beautifully written manual, not just on typography but arguably also on the deeper philosophy and understanding of the design of our most common form of communication.

I am now have regular conversations along the lines, "I'm reading this wonderful book, just beautifully written, I can't put it down. - What's it about? - Typography. - What's that? Erm, well, sometimes it's about the space between letters..... "

Just a lovely, lovely book that you will take great pleasure in owning.

Thouroughly recommended.

United Kingdom on Jul 06, 2015

Michael Gagliano: This is simply a book that should be found in any designer's personal library. Don't ever think that the fact that you are increasingly tasked with more interaction design than print design (or with no print design at all) renders this book obsolete — on the contrary, it renders it even more fundamental. Every UI/UX design task in any possible field of application requires the same amount of typographical knowledge that is necessary to design for analog mediums. Mediums change but fundamental typographic rules have been the same for 600 years. That said, not all of the knowledge contained in this book is fundamental or even useful for certain applications — ultimately, it will aways be you who decides which rules to follow and which to discard, but there is no doubt that in order to do so, you must first know them.

Italy on Mar 26, 2015