Books on Typography
Type Directors Club President, Charles Nix, has compiled this list of books on typography. By clicking on these links and purchasing a book you will be helping to support the TDC. If you would like to suggest a book, please click here.
The ABC’s of [triangle circle square], The Bauhaus and Design Theory
Ellen Lupton
ABC of Lettering and Printing Typefaces: A Complete Guide to the Letters and Typefaces Used for Typesetting and Printing
Erik Lindgren
American Wood Type, 1828–1900
Rob Roy Kelly
Anatomy of a Typeface
Alexander S. Lawson
An Approach to Type
John R. Biggs
Arabic Typography
Huda Smitshuijzen Abifares
The Art of Graphic Design
Bradbury Thompson
Art of the Printed Book, 1455–1955
Joseph Blumenthal
The Art of Typo(icon)graphy
Martin Solomon
Asymmetric Typography
Jan Tschichold
Better Type
Betty Binns
Book Typography: A Designer’s Manual
Michael and Susan Wightman Mitchell
Counterpunch
Fred Smeijers
Design of Books
Adrian Wilson
Design Writing Research
Ellen Lupton
Designing Books
Jost Hochuli, Robin Kinross
Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography
James Craig, William Bevington, Irene Korol Scala
Dimensional Typography
J. Abbott Miller
The Education of a Typographer
Steven Heller
The Elements of Typographic Style
Robert Bringhurst
Emigre: Graphic Design into the Digital Realm
Rudy Vanderlans, Zuzana Licko, Mary E. Gray, Jeffery Keedy
The Encyclopaedia of Typefaces
W. Turner Berry, A. F. Johnson. W. Pincus Jaspart
An Essay on Typography
Eric Gill
“Fine Print” on Type
Charles Bigelow
Finer Points in the Spacing & Arrangement of Type
Geoffrey Dowding
First Principles of Typography
Stanley Morison
Five Hundred Years of Printing
S. H. Steinberg, John Trevitt
The Form of the Book
Jan Tschichold
Glossary of Typesetting Terms
Richard Eckersley, et al.
Herb Lubalin
Gertrude Snyder and Alan Peckolick
Hermann Zapf and His Design Philosophy
Herman Zapf
In the Day’s Work
Daniel Berkeley Updike
Jan Tschichold
Ruari McLean
John Baskerville of Birmingham
F. E Pardoe
Language Culture Type
John D. Berry
Lay In, Lay Out; En Ander Oud Zeer
Piet Schreuders
Layout in Advertising
W. A. Dwiggins
Leben und Werk des Typographen Jan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold
Letter Forms, Typographic and Scriptorial, Two Essays
Stanley Morison
Letterletter
Gerrit Noordzij
Letters of Credit
Walter Tracy
Life with Letters–As They Turned Photogenic
Edward Rondthaler
Manuale Tipografico
Giambattista Bodoni, David Pankow, David Darling
Meggs’ History of Graphic Design
Philip B. Meggs, Alston W. Purvis
The Metafont Book
Donald E. Knuth
Mixing Messages
Ellen Lupton
Modern Typography, 2nd Edition
Robin Kinross
The New Typography
Jan Tschichold
Origin of the Serif
Edward M. Catich, Mary W. Gilroy
Paragraphs on Printing
Bruce Rogers
Period Styles: A History of Punctuation
The Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography
Practice of Typography
Theodore Low De Vinne
Printing Types: Their History, Form and Use
D.B. Updike
Rookledge’s Classic International Typefinder
Christopher Perfect, Gordon Rookledge, Phil Baines
A Short History of the Printed Word
Warren Chappell, Robert Bringhurst
Signs and Symbols
Adrian Frutiger, Andrew Bluhm
Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works
Erik Spiekermann
Stylepedia
Steven Heller, Louise Fili
A Tally of Types
Stanley Morison, Brooke Crutchley
Texts on Type
Steven Heller, Philip B. Meggs
The Thames and Hudson Manual of Typography
Ruari McLean
Thinking with Type
Ellen Lupton
Treasury of Alphabets and Lettering
Jan Tschichold
20th Century Type Designers
Sebastian Carter
Type Rules!
Ilene Strizver
Typencyclopedia: A User’s Guide to Better Typography
Frank Romano
Typographers on Type
Ruari McLean
The Typographic Book, 1450–1935
Stanley Morison and Kenneth Day
Typography
Friedrich Friedl
Typography
Emil Ruder
Typography
Willi Kunz
Typologia
Frederic W. Goudy
Typophile Chapbook: Harsh words
T. M. Cleland
Typophile Chapbook: The Kelmscott Press, 1891 to 1898
William Morris
Typophile Chapbook: Theodore Low De Vinne;
Carl Purington Rollins
Typophile Chapbook: Designing a Book
Abe Lerner
Typophile Chapbook: MSS by WAD
W. A. Dwiggins
Typophile Chapbook: The Type Designs Made for Private and Commercial Use, 1896 to 1943
Frederic W. Goudy
Typophiles Chapbook: B.L.W. to the Typophiles
Beatrice Warde
Typophiles Chapbook: William Caxton and His Quincentenary
John Dreyfus
Typophiles Chapbook: Ands & ampersands, from the first century B.C. to the twentieth A.D
Frederic W Goudy
Typophiles Chapbook: B. Franklin, 1706–1790
Benjamin Franklin
Typophiles Chapbook: Books and printing
Paul A. Bennett
Typophiles Chapbook: Postscripts on Dwiggins
Paul A. Bennet
U&lc
John D. Berry
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Edward R. Tufte
While You’re Reading
Gerard Unger
Wolfgang Weingart: My Way to Typography
Wolfgang Weingart, K. Wolff
The Work of Jan Van Krimpen
John Dreyfus
Writing & Illuminating & Lettering
Edward Johnston