Erik Spiekermann
Erik Spiekermann’s Book List
This list was in my head, and I was thinking that getting the details and writing a few lines for each title would take a leisurely Sunday afternoon. It turned out to be a busy Friday morning instead. I’ve made this list from all the books I could reach from my desk at home without getting onto ladders. I have about 3,000 books, so there could easily be many more. As there is intelligent life outside the U.S., I have included some of my favorite books in German as well.
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This is the best book I have ever seen about the 20th century’s best type designer and shows images and projects that have never been published elsewhere. I helped with the adaptation into English.
If you only want to have one book by Tschichold, this is it. If it hadn't already been translated into English, I would say it would be worth learning German for.
This is a brilliant book about contemporary product design in the guise of an exhibition catalogue, designed and produced in Japan.
Bosshard is one of the grand old men of Swiss design and deserves to be better known abroad. This volume (“Mathematical Foundations of Typesetting”), along with Bosshard’s Technische Grundlagen zur Satzherstellung (“Technical Foundations of Typesetting”), would be my desert island typography books. They contain everything there is to be known about the mathematical and technical principles behind typesetting (as the German titles—these are not available in English—say). You can learn to add in hexadecimal, compare all the systems of proportion ever invented and the mathematical rules behind them, find out how to mark up type (a dead but important art), and look up the formats of books, magazines, and newspapers from around the world. I still have no idea how the author and his sons managed to gather and display all this information and live to write more books since.
Kinross is one of the best writers on typography and also the man behind Hyphen Press. I buy all Hyphen’s books unseen.
Why alphabets look like they do, what has happened to them since printing was invented, why they won’t ever change, and how it might have been.
Timothy Donaldson calls himself a “letterworker.” I know him as one of the best calligraphers and letterers around who infuses his work not with quasi-religious vigor but with English humor and a great deal of spontaneity. I cannot do better than Ken Garland, himself a well-respected designer and writer, who writes in the foreword: “This is a work many of us have been waiting for: one that brings together information on topics as diverse as the organs of speech, hieroglyphics, the development of the minuscule, maritime signal flags, the qwerty keyboard, semaphore and many others …”
The charts—one for each of the 26 letters—are complex and comprehensive and beautiful at the same time. There are many more illustrations, all made for this book. Whenever students of visual communication ask for my recommendation, I mention Shapes for Sounds as the first thing they should read. It is as entertaining and well-designed as any coffee-table book and offers a wealth of information beyond the good looks.
See comments for Bosshard’s Mathematische Grundlagen zur Satzherstellung.
Great essays from all the relevant typographers between 1895 and 1990. Deserves a second volume to bring it into the present.
For all your friends who want just one volume that helps them understand what makes a good book and an easy-to-read page.
A beautiful book, perfect as a little present. Looks like a novel from the outside, bound in gray cloth with a black reading band and blind-embossed with TDR on the front, with the author’s name and the title running down the spine, embossed in black.
Theodore Rosendorf explains all the elements of a page and a book; the foreword by Ellen Lupton explains what a foreword is, and the author himself writes in the Introduction that this is “Usually placed after a foreword, preface or acknowledgement …”. This is followed by Terms, from the A series paper standards to work and turn/work and tumble. He then lists all the glyphs we may encounter, including—to his credit—those that may seem obscure to an American readership not familiar with all the diacritics used in languages beyond English, i. e., most of them.
Anatomy & Form shows and explains letterforms while Classification & Specimens shows just enough different alphabets beyond the boring classics as to actually make this a useful list. Further Reading shows a long and interesting list not only of books but also of websites, and the Index is one of the longest and most useful ones in a book of this kind.
All this is carefully typeset and beautifully printed. A fine book indeed.
Gill is one of my heroes. He uses plain language and common sense, both in this book and in all his work. And the book is set in my FF Meta.
An unusual approach to wayfinding, as the title implies. The most concise and useful book on the topic by an author from Denmark whose work I admire.
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
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Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman
Love Letter to a Garden
By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025
From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
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