Thinking With Type

With gorgeous designs, insightful essays, and comprehensive explanations, Ellen Lupton’s Thinking With Type is not only an essential but also a pleasurable reading on typography. The book is an excellent accompaniment to a course on type design because Lupton’s balances the theory and practice, at the same time, she manages to keep the texts short, straightforward, and accessible.

Divided into three main categories, Thinking With Type walks readers from the fundamental concepts of “Letter” (including size, classification, and families) to the arrangements of “Text” (such as kerning, tracking, and spacing) to the visual layouts using “Grid” (exploring single and multiple columns, modular, and data tables). The structures, illustrations, and exercises are well crafted to help readers enhance their use of type. While most typographic books cover mainly on print design, Thinking With Type deals with both print and web. Many beautiful screenshots of web sites are showcased throughout the book as well as a short coverage of “Web Accessibility” and “Web Hierarchy.”

Thinking With Type is a book that could be read from cover to cover because of the slim in size and simplified in language. Even the “Appendix” is filled with useful information, especially the free advices: “think more, design less,” “spend more, buy less,” and especially for screen designers, “make it bigger.” So buy it, study it, enjoy it, and most importantly, apply it. Still not convinced? Visit ThinkingWithType.com for excerpts.