Typography has never been an easy or interesting subject for most people. It is rare to find a book that explores and explains Typography in an interesting and modern. This book does just that. Having taught the subject, I used this book as a basis for my course. It is a wonderful primer for students and a great refresher for typographers. The information is well-written and presented. The book provides wonderful exercises and quizes at the end of each chapter and great typographic examples. My only minor criticism is that some pages are not the easiest to read because of the font and font size that is used - but this is very minor and easily overlooked. I whole-heartedly recommend this book!
As a practicing graphic artist, Ive read and studied myriad books on typography. Although much of the information presented in "Typographic Workshop" is already familiar, never have I seen it presented in such a clear and pragmatic fashion. Even experienced artists can find a great deal of practical and interesting typographic facts. This is the typography book I wished I could have started out with. Type history is presented in context with the prevailing state of civilization (and barbarism). It brings the historical significance of type alive. In addition, much practical information is presented in comprehensible form. Were I teaching a class in typography, this would be required reading. Its self-teaching, therefore, making this immensely valuable information accesible to all who seek it.
This is unequivocally the most poorly written textbook Ive ever encountered in my life. I have no idea how this got published. If you casually flip through the book as a cursory review, youll find that it LOOKS nice, (On almost every other page theres an enlarged sample of a font - complete with an unnecessary, meticulously hand-drawn portrait of its creator) But once you begin an attempt to actually read the text, its migraine time. The writing is so distractingly bad that Im at the point where after reading this book for a few hours, I find myself having learned nothing because I keep finding awkwardly written sentences and revising them in my head instead of retaining the information theyre supposed to convey. As an example, proving why no one should ever spend money on this book, here is an excerpt from the first chapter: "Those who could read were looked to for advice in all types of disputes and emergencies, their knowledge and judgment were unchallenged. Scribes - those who could write - were believed in some cultures to have power over human life, if an Egyptian scribe wrote your name in the Book of the Dead, your time was up in this world! Doubtless, the scribes did little to dissuade this myth. Scribes were trained in Egypt from the time they were about five years old. Today we have abolished this controlled system of learning writing and reading skills. (But a parallel to that practice today can be seen today in the knowledge of computer programming.) In ancient times, hand-copied scrolls were expensive to produce, (not many people were taught to write); any scrolls were cherished, valued and cared for from one generation to the next."
