This is a review of Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton. The book is published in paperback, and weighs in at 176 pages.
The publisher’s synopsis claims that the book “presents practical information about typographic design that can be immediately applied within the context of design history and theory”, and the book begins with the claim that it is not about fonts, but “how to use them”. I was looking for a practical guide to typography for self-study, and after reading reviews for the book on Amazon, I thought it would be a wise purchase. I would be proven wrong.
Instead of a book focused on practicality, I found one focused almost entirely on type history. Instead of a book on how to use fonts, I found one on how fonts have been used.
The writing does the book no favours. It bills itself as “a critical guide”, yet as far as I could tell, there is no theory or argument advanced within it. Often, when I moved to a new paragraph, there was a jarring disconnect with the one before. I felt like I was reading a list of expanded bullet-points.
Several times, Lupton makes or quotes big statements which go completely unsupported. You find things like:
Barthes pictured the text as “woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages (what language is not?), antecedent and contemporary, which cut across and through in a vast stereophony…The metaphor of the Text is that of the network.” Writing in the 1960s and 1970s, Barthes anticipated the Internet as a decentralized web of connections. p68
which is a rather large inference to take, and
“Alphanumeric text has risen from its own ashes, a digital phoenix taking flight on monitors, across networks, and in the realms of virtual space.” p76
which is painfully melodramatic. When I pointed this out to Des, he asked: “When exactly did alphanumeric text die?”
The greatest problem here is that these statements are rarely elaborated upon, and never challenged. In the classroom this might be fine—one quick question and the problem is solved—but as a standalone book it suffers for it. It’s hard to learn from these are as they lack depth, a flaw which is present throughout the book (and they induced flashbacks to Information Anxiety 2, which is never good).
All of this is made all the more frustrating by the fact that Lupton clearly knows her stuff. The diagrams used to illustrate properties such as tracking, kerning and visual alignment are excellent, and many of the examples she provides are both interesting and beautiful. If Lupton were to create a booklet of these diagrams, I would recommend it in a second.
Overall I was very disappointed in this book. I’m quite confused by the fawning reviews elsewhere. I recommend you steer clear of it, and instead hook yourself up with a copy of both The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst, and Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann.
This is an Article. It was posted on October 18, 2008.
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