A fascinating debate between Wim Crouwel and Jan Van Toorn—two graphic design legends defending their view on design. Crouwel takes the rational approach and Van Toorn takes the personal approach. Crouwel believes that the designers should not stand between the message and its audience. In contrast, Van Toorn believes that the designers should engage their audience. In The Debate: The Legendary Contest of Two Giants of Graphic Design, each designer makes compelling arguments in his design approach and they proved in their work that design is diverse. The designers need to find a method that works for them and continue to develop and refine their design.

A concise yet insightful read on the making of Miles Davis’s bold and beautiful Bitches Brew. From the events leading up to the recording sessions to the process of crafting an experience for the album to the impacts it has on listeners and critics, Svorinich’s clear and balanced analysis makes Listen to This informative and engaging. Having read this book makes me wanting to revisit Bitches Brew again and again.

Ellen Lupton’s foreword, which explains the purpose of a foreword, is just priceless. As the title suggests, TDR is a concise but comprehensive typographic reference. It even covers all the Vietnamese characters. The book is set in Carol Twombly’s Adobe Caslon with discretionary ligatures and custom glyphs by the author himself. It’s worthy of any designer’s desk.

When I flipped through this book at Barnes & Noble, it looks and feels familiar. It turns out that Tony Seddon has designed the excellent The Anatomy of Type by Stephen Coles. Like Coles’s book, The Evolution of Type is beautiful in illustration and insightful in providing the history of 100 timeless typefaces. The chronological order of the release date of the typefaces gives readers a sense of how typography has evolved in the last 500 years and continued to do so in the future. If you love The Anatomy, you will appreciate The Evolution. They are a perfect complement.

For some reasons I had this book on the shelf since June when I got it for free at the Typographics conference in New York. I took it with me last week to read on my vacation and it turns out be a page-turner. Tamye Riggs has done an excellent job of giving us some insights on the Adobe Type team. I am a huge fan of Robert Slimbach’s and Carol Twombly’s typefaces and this book provides some intriguing details about their works and processes. If you attend a type conference and spot this gem, which sets in beautiful Adobe Garamond, pick it up. Thanks to Adobe for this wonderful gift.

Insightful essays, meticulous explanations, and striking designs make this book an important and compelling read. The attention to the letterforms throughout the book not only explains why the classic typefaces continue to play a vital role in the digital age, but also help you learn the details of type. It is definitely worthy on any designer’s bookshelf.

A fascinating look into the process of making type in the sixteenth century. By provides the technical considerations and challenges that went into the punchcutting technique, Smeijers makes you appreciate type design. It’s an intriguing read for type nerds. Just finished through the entire book and I already wanted to reread it to soak in all the details.

Developed by linguist Leonard Bloomfield, Let’s Read is a systematic approach based on psychology and logic to teach basic reading. The lessons—I am using to teach my six-year-old son to read—has been refined and thoughtfully reconstructed by the authors (Cynthia and Robert Barnhart) to help building up the reading process. Unlike most children books with pictures, in which he immediately looked at the images first than tried to figured out the meaning of the words, Let’s Read forces him to focus on the text only. He has progressed well with the first eight lessons. The large text, which sets in the beautiful ITC Century, makes reading a pleasure.

“The essence of the New Typography is clarity,” said Tschichold. Even though Tschichold had abandoned his own position of The New Typography, the principles provided in this handbook are still practical for contemporary design. Read it and keep it in mind for projects that required bold, no-nonsense communication.

For a book on type, the body text is barely readable. The font size is way too small. I ended up browsing the type specimens instead of reading the designers’ biography. The content seems to be good and I wish I could zoom in on the text, but it is not a web site. I hope that the book gets a redesign in the near future with larger and more comfortable text for reading.