books

Thank you, Paul.

I have a couple of them; Bringhurst and Tracy. But the problem is that none of them aid me in the process of designing a typeface and I do not know which books does just that. I am looking for some tips and tricks and the basic rules. Could you point out some specific?

Thomas

Thomas, two books on that list are exactly what you might be looking for:

Learn FontLab Fast by Leslie Cabarga

and

Logo, Font and Lettering Bible also by Leslie Cabarga

http://www.logofontandlettering.com

The web site of Briem is a superb resource--it should be in a 'where to begin' note in the typowiki, if it isn't already.

several related topics in How-To.
In particular, the Drawing_How-To lists the briem site, as well as Underware and some other great resources.

Using Wayback.org you can also see some of the books that were in our archives before the changeover.

Tiffany, is the 'library' going to make a comeback at some point?

The Briem site is good, also look on Google for Chank. Some might not like him, but he is there and has been. A good book, among many, is "Designing Typefaces" by David Earls, more history than how-to, but best of all are the interviews with designers. The Bringhurst book never leaves my sight, nor does Tracy's "Letters of Credit." Also good is "Typographically Speaking The Art of Matthew Carter" by Margaret Re, with essays by Johanna Drucker and James Mosley. Also very good is "Goudy's Type Designs" with text by Goudy. Goudy's commentary is very interesting and often amusing.

A really good "how they do it" book is Haley's "Hot designers make cool fonts".

hhp

Hrant,

Is that a real book title? Sounds like a joke, but if it's real, it sounds like a great read!

Yeah, the title is as real as it is lame... And some of the font showings have actually defaulted to Courier - for which Allan apologized profusely on-stage at TypeCon 1998. But the book still manages to be quite insightful.

hhp

Hrant,

Thanks for the info! I'll check the library next time I go there... I guess they should've created outlines of the fonts for the book. :)

Fontographer: Type by Design by Stephen Moye

It is currently out of print but can be found in digital form on the net. If you'd rather take the non piracy approach, some members had copies for sale.

Most of the information in the book is not specific to Fontographer and it covers the correct drawing of outlines from a technical perspective particularly well. Opinions as to its usefulness were mixed among typophile members, but I found it contained some very interesting information that I had not found in other books on the subject.

look for A Constructed Roman Alphabet By David Lance Goines

[off-topic: what is the little w + green text? and what is the "Access Denied" — do I need a password or something? Thank you]

the green text means there's a link to a wiki entry/wiki stub. The wiki is kinda buggy at this point in time, that's why you're getting "Access Denied." Hopefully that's all cleared up sometime soon.

Thank you all!

That should get me startet.

Thomas Hansen

Tiffany, is the ‘library’ going to make a comeback at some point?

William, it is a current goal. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

>a current goal

Good, I think it was a very nice resource. If in the new version it would be very easy to add comments, it would be good. Then you'd get a variety of opinion on the book.

"Then you’d get a variety of opinion on the book"

Like Amazon.com..... good idea.

BTW, Jared & Joe & Miss Tiffany — why not to have a deal with Amazon (and part of the money --> Typophile? or you have that deal.....)

One step ahead of you David. All -- 99.9% -- of our links were through Amazon. But thanks for the tip, even if after the fact.

The Underware's Type Basics are also very good:

http://www.typeworkshop.com/index.php?id1=type-basics