A visual, concise, and accessible guide, Chris Campe & Ulrike Rausch walk through the entire process of Making Fonts from sketch to publish. If you want to get into type design, this book is definitely helpful. Even for someone like me who uses type, I find the technical details to be invaluable for typesetting.
I picked up Brian Miller’s Principles of Web Design because I have not read a book on web design in a long time. I have been in the game for over two decades and I haven’t followed the industry since responsive web design, which was 13 years ago. I am curious to know if the principles have changed. According to Miller’s book, the principles of web design hasn’t changed much since he wrote this book in 2008. In the latest edition, Miller focuses on three sections: plan, design, and optimize. Principles of Web Design is a review for me to see if I have missed anything in recent years. If you are new to web design and want to get into the game, this is a good book to get started on.
In her clear and concise book, Mary C. Dyson shares her research on the legibility of type, typography, and beyond. Print legibility has been covered before, but not so much on screen legibility. I wish Dyson delves deeper on the screen portion. Nevertheless, Legibility is an essential read for designers—particular web practitioners.
The entire book is published on the web. How awesome is that? The book is typeset in Adapter, designed by Rosetta Type. While I like a sans serif text face like Adapter, I still prefer a serif text face for book form. Somehow I got a bit bored reading long text in a sans-serif font, especially with a dense subject like ligigility. Of course, this has nothing to do with legibility, but serif text is still more readable even on the screens.
This book released in 2017; therefore, it sounded dated. I didn’t get much out of it. My sense of design is simple and straightforward. My design doesn’t need to tell a story. My design just needs to connect and communicate. Not sure where I am going with this.
Heller and Anderson are prolific writers. I can’t keep up with their sheer volume of books on graphic design. The Logo Design Idea Book, which released in 2020, featured 50 logos with a one-page explanation for each. It is short, sweet, and insightful. It’s a perfect switch for me from poetry to design.
Read through the collection and understood just a bit of it. My brain is just not picking up poetry and I simply don’t know what write even a few brief sentences. After five months of reading poetry books, I am taking a break and return to novel and fiction. It was a fun journey. Of course I will continue to read poetry, but not exclusively.
I don’t fully understand Dekine’s poems—even a simple one like “Paris, 2019”:
I lost control
following cigarette processionals, in and out,
of a freedom-spatting
mausoleum head. I loveJames Baldwin.
There are entire worlds
in his words. My heart became
a jade toad, croaking fire. I leapt—
followed e smoke.
I can’t figure out “e.” In any rate, I read through the collection once.
I must confess. I have many thoughts on my mind; therefore, I haven’t been able to focus. I read through Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué Madness, but I could not pay attention to the poems. Since the collection is selected from 1976–2035, the poems are too ahead of my knowledge.
A fierce, fearlessness collection about body, shame, and violence. The metaphor of “Pomegranate” to a woman’s body is fascinating. I enjoyed and comprehended most of the poems.
This collection took me a bit to feel the vibes. Tibble’s poems are honest, heartfelt, and humorous. She is a young poet with so much potential. I’ll definitely go back for a second read.