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Before I go into detail with the review, let’s get the basic definition sorted out shall we? With this being a book review, I feel its only fitting to use the book in explaining what typography is. There are a lot of lengthy discussions online about the meaning of typography but, for the sake of simplicity, we will refer to the front cover of the book:

Typography – n. The arrangement, style and appearance of type and typefaces.

Now that we understand what typography is, this book is a great starting point to begin the addiction that you will no doubt pick up along the way. The subject and study of typography in general tends to be very addictive once you start, and I feel this is even more so when talking about typography for the web. I must point out though, this is not a book strictly covering the web, it is more of a general introduction to type overall but the fundamentals covered can easily be applied online in several ways and anyone looking to learn about web typography should learn the basics first anyway.

Although this book is part of a series called Basic Design, it is very comprehensive in covering all aspects of typography. Starting from basic understandings, you will learn all about where and how type is used, different typeface styles and the anatomy of a typeface.

You are then taken through a series of Type Classifications and variations of those. This chapter again seems pretty basic but for the beginner, it goes above and beyond a simple understanding of identifying different classifications and teaching you where to use them appropriately.

Chapter 3 is all about setting type and you are introduced with examples of type families. In this chapter, you are given an understanding of several different factors to think of when setting type including ligatures, leading, tracking, kerning and spacing. This is definitely my most recommended section of the book and a great point to leave your bookmark for future reference.

The subsequent chapters cover type generation in which you will learn about the techniques and approaches to building letterforms, type realisation which mainly refers to the print world and type in practice where you will learn about how type works in reality.

I am a novice when it comes to typography compared to a lot of people but after reading this book, I already understand a lot of what has been previously confusing on several blogs I follow. I will definitely be continuing my studies of typography and my next purchase is most likely to be aimed at online typography specifically. Any recommendations in that regard are more than welcome.

So, if you are looking for a starting point on typography, I would highly recommend this book and perhaps the others in the series which include Format, Layout and Image & Colour. This may have not been the best of reviews as it is my first attempt and the subject matter is something to which I am still very new but hopefully it encouraged you to pick up a copy or at least to think about typography on your own site a bit more.

Fundamentals of Typography by Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris.