Thinking with Type is such book. This book is a critical guide for designers, writers, editors and students who would like something about typography.

Thinking with Type

This book is written by Ellen Lupton, a typography teacher on the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She wanted handbook explaining typography for her students. That is exactly what this book has turned into, a practical design handbook.

The Cover

When my school books arrived, my eye was directly drawn to that small, robust and compact book. The cover is beautifully designed, it’s clear that this book is about typography. Just awesome.

Thanks to ethanbodnar.com for the picture. My camera is broken..

Book Design

Thinking with Type is organized in three main subjects namely letter, text and grid. They both explain different aspects of typography and they do that in style. The typefaces Scala and Thesis are used to put the theory thought in the book in practice right away.

The light shades of yellow, blue and orange makes the design really stand out from the crowd and is really enjoyable. Combine that with the excellent examples, photographs and typefaces that this book is rich and you have one of the best typography books around.

The Content

You can see that Ellen Lupton has gained enough experience from her teacher job to explain all typography aspects in an easy and understandable way. You don’t have to be an experienced typographer to understand what is explained.

After reading this book you will know all the basics about typography. Don’t expect going too deep into the matter, but that is not a problem.

Conclusion

For me, this book is a must have. I browse the book numerous times a week to gain typography knowledge, examples or photographs. The Thinking with Type website is also filled with powerful information and tips.

Purchase the book from the Thinking with Type website. No affiliate link – just a typography book that deserves a spot on your bookshelf.

After browsing the web to order it, I was thinking about DivitoDesign. That book is very interesting for any of you, so I get up and contact Gestalten to do a book review for this blog.

Los Logos 4

The Los Logos series, published by Gestalten, is all about logos. In their 4 books, they have gathered thousands of different logos for your inspiration. With 567 pages Los Logos 4 provides you with plenty enough knowledge about current logo design trends.

Let’s talk about the different aspects of the book.

The cover

Woow! That cover looks absolutely beautiful. From the outside the cover feels like velvet, yet the cover stays robust and massive. The colors are great as well, it looks like gold with a greenish flow lying over it. The color depends of the angle you watch at it. I am not a large fan of the symmetrical logo, but it is a good contrast with the ‘soft’ cover.

The Logos

The logos are split into 9 different categories, ranging from Sports to Games to Corporate and anything in between. One thing that I really like is that they listed all the logos with the same style together. That means that you will find typography-based logos together, noisy logos together etc.

The quality of the logos are exceptionally high. There are so many styles and approaches to logo design inside this book that you can use this book forever. Every time you will browse the book again, you will find new and different inspiration. That makes Los Logos 4 the most complete inspiration book I have in my book-library.

Book design

This book really focuses on the logos. The graphical aspect of the pages are minimal and very subtle, which makes it very pleasant for the eye to browse the book. The gold cover is also present inside the book to indicate different chapters.

What do I miss?

As a graphical student, I am learned to gather information, analyze that information and to compose a goal. In this book however, you see logos only. That means you don’t know how and why the designers have chosen for that approach and style. You don’t know their motives and the requirements of the client. What makes that logo good for that specific business?

Unfortunately, a brief description about the project isn’t available in the book. This makes it impossible for the logo designer to learn something from these projects and logos. However, I think the goal was to provide inspiration anyway.

Conclusion

Los Logos 4 is a fantastic book to get to know the latest logo trends and styles. You will get plenty of inspiration from only browsing a few pages. So, in my opinion, if you are a designer of any kind, I think this book deserves a place in your book library.

Get more information and order details on Gestalten.