Design with Type

By Carl Dair

Book Overview

Design with Type was first published in 1952 and appeared in this multi-award-winning revised edition in 1967, which was the first Canadian work to be named Book of the Year by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). Its author, Carl Dair (1912-1967) was one of Canada's best-known and most celebrated type compositors and designers. Discussing type as a design material as well as a means of communication, Dair argued that if type is understood in terms of design, the user of type will be better able to work with it to achieve maximum clarity and aesthetic pleasure. He guides the reader through a study of typography that starts with the examination of an individual letter and proceeds with words, lines, and masses of text. Dair details the main design elements of type - size, weight, structure, form, colour, direction, and texture - and illustrates the applications of typography in books, advertising, magazines, and other printed forms. The various schools of typography are discussed and the book includes over 150 examples of imaginative typography from around the world. Design with Type is a classic work in a field of design that continues to flourish. Dair's influence on subsequent typographers and designers of print media is considerable and deserving of further study.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802065198
• ISBN13: 9780802065193
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Length: 162 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.0" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

Unlike other books I have come across, this title is worthy of being on the shelf. More visual examples could have been shown but I say this because I enjoy looking at pictures. The text in this book is definately valuable. $25 is a fair price I'd say.

An invaluable tool

There's a reason why Carl Dair's book has been continuously in print since it was first published in the '50s. It's one of the best introductions to the idea of contrast in design: contrast of size, contrast of weight, contrast of position, and so on. And it's visually inspiring itself, despite being a small, square, one- and two-color volume. Recent printings have unpleasantly tight bindings, but it's still a classic, and one of the best available tools for typographic design.

Nice introduction to type use

For some reason Canada seems to produce spectacular typographic writers. I'd never read this book before, but encountering it for CDN5.00 a few years back, I figured I may as well pick it up. Good decision. It's a very well-written book indeed.