“Type designers are, at their best, the Stradivarii of literature: not merely makers of salable products, but artists who design and make the instruments that other artists use.” ArtistsTypographyStradivarius Book:The Elements of Typographic Style Source: The Elements of Typographic Style
“In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles.” WellsMadeBookSometimesMatterDoneJobsLinesAliveDesignFieldsPagesLettersHorseBreadDesignerSeatsStarvingMarginsMillsStaleAisleTypographyPrinterMutton Author:Robert Bringhurst
“A man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep, Frederic Goudy liked to say. If this wisdom needs updating, it is chiefly to add that a woman who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep as well .” IfsMenNeedsWellsCasesAddStealingSheepTypography Author:Robert Bringhurst
“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.” HumansFormLanguageCraftsVisualsTypographyHuman Language Author:Robert Bringhurst
“By all means break the rules, and break them beautifully, deliberately and well.” WellsMeanBreakI Hate YouTypography Author:Robert Bringhurst
“Typography is to literature as musical performance is to composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness.” LiteratureOpportunityDesignEssentialsPerformancesMusicalInsightEndlessInterpretationCompositionTypographyEndless OpportunitiesMusical Performance Author:Robert Bringhurst
“Typography at its best is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time.” FormLanguageDesignDesignerVisualsTimelessnessTypographyGreat DesignBest DesignDurability Author:Robert Bringhurst
“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy - the dance, on a tiny stage, of the living, speaking hand - and its roots reach into living soil, though its branches may be hung each year with new machines. So long as the root lives, typography remains a source of true delight, true knowledge, true surprise.” YearsHumansMayLongHandsFormLanguageExistenceStageSourceRootsMachinesIndependentRemainsSurpriseDelightTinyCraftsBranchesVisualsSoilHungTypographyTrue KnowledgeHuman LanguageCalligraphy Author:Robert Bringhurst
“In a world rife with unsolicited messages, typography must often draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn. Typography with anything to say therefore aspires to a kind of statuesque transparency. It's other traditional goal is durability: not immunity to change, but a clear superiority to fashion. Typography at its best is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time.” WorldKindFormOrderLanguageGoalAttentionClearFashionMessagesDrawsTraditionalVisualsAspireSuperiorityTransparencyImmunityTimelessnessTypographyDurability Author:Robert Bringhurst
“In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography, man compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit.” MenWellsAgeStuffDarkSpaceGenerationsCenturyTaughtHabitPeriodsBenefitsSentencesExtrasHittingTwentieth CenturyNineteenth CenturyVictorianSpace BetweenTypingTypographyQuaint Author:Robert Bringhurst
“Space in typography is like time in music. It is infinitely divisible, but a few proportional intervals can be much more useful than a limitless choice of arbitrary quantities.” ChoicesSpaceQuantityArbitraryLimitlessIntervalsTypography Author:Robert Bringhurst
