Erik Spiekermann
Erik Spiekermann’s Notable Books of 2011
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For a friend who is a free-lance designer and has to do everything herself:
We used to have specialist that we could ask for advice, rely on for help and also blame for things that went wrong during the production process. These days, graphic designers have to be their own typesetters, reproduction photographers and print buyers. There are websites, help pages, blogs and numerous articles in trade magazines. But if you only want one reference that explains why things need to be a certain way, this book is all you’ll ever need. From typographic detail to color spaces, from paper types and sizes to image editing, it’s all here. Described in incredible but useful detail (the author is a German compositor) and illustrated in a way that coincides with what you see on your screen as you work.
As the U. S. is one of the very few countries left in the world that still doesn’t use the metric system, the book includes American sizes and measures along with the metric figures, making it also useful as a reference for conversion between the two.
If you only want one reference while you work, this is it.
Full disclosure: the book was translated from German into English by my son, Dylan Spiekermann, who has an English mother and lives in London. I helped with technical consultation for the English-language edition.
For your lawyer friend (we may not like to admit it, but we all have one at least):
As it says on the back cover: Good typography is part of good lawyering. Nobody has ever counted how many arguments or court cases are lost because of bad documents that were difficult to decipher, complicated language notwithstanding. I wonder whether documents are often impenetrable and impossible to understand because the author doesn’t want the other party to know what they’re up to – that is certainly the case with contractual documents. They need an expert to read, creating work for the legal trade. If a book works for lawyers, it’ll work for anybody who writes, edits and produces complex documents.
Matthew Butterick practices civil litigation in Los Angeles but has a background in design and typography. He has just released a typeface designed specially for these types of documents called Equity and has been running the website www.typographyforlawyers.com since 2008.
This is a pleasantly small but comprehensive book, written in a style that betrays Matthew’s background in communication. If your lawyer friend doesn’t go on to produce better documents after reading this book, it may be time for a new friend (released November 2010).
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Announcements
Design Books to Win, December 18, 2014: Winners of Five Books by Pentagram Designers Announced
The winners of five books designed by Pentagram have been announced. The three winners are Joy Weeeng, Tyler Wilson, and Tim Zissou — congratulations!
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Our new giveaways begin again in 2015.
New Book Release, December 31, 2014: What If...?: The Architecture and Design of David Rockwell
Widely admired for his sophistication, creativity and exuberance, David Rockwell is one of the leading architects, interiors architects, and set designers working today. For over 30 years, he has explored his desire to imagine new worlds, to tell stories and to engage with others. This interest is rooted in his sense of play and possibility—an endless curiosity that continually drives him to ask, “What if?”
Edited by Chee Pearlman; texts by David Rockwell, et al.
Published by Metropolis Books
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New Book Release, February 3, 2015: The Modern Architecture Symposia, 1962–1966: A Critical Edition
In a series of three symposia at Columbia University in the 1960s, leading scholars and critics gathered to re-examine the architecture of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s and assess its scope and significance anew. Chaired by Henry-Russell Hitchcock with the support of Philip Johnson, the Modern Architecture Symposia marked a pivotal moment in the reappraisal of early modern architecture and its historiography during the late modern period.
Edited by Rosemarie Haag Bletter and Joan Ockman, with Nancy Ecklund Later
Published by The Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture; distributed by Yale University Press
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New Book Release, February 9, 2015: Reproducing Scholten & Baijings
The first book on the work of the Amsterdam-based studio Scholten & Baijings, which has become renowned for its sensitive and subtle yet functional products—from ceramics and silverware to textiles and even a concept car.
By Louise Schouwenberg
Published by Phaidon Press
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New Book Release, February 17, 2014: B is for Bauhaus, Y is for YouTube: Designing the Modern World from A to Z
A tool kit, done in A–Z form, for understanding the world around us through the way we design and use things. Covering subjects that range from authenticity to Grand Theft Auto to Dieter Rams, Deyan Sudjic’s latest book has been called “a master class in musing on modern design.”
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By Deyan Sudjic
Published by Rizzoli
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New Book Release, September 16, 2014: Designing Here/Now
An ambitious global compendium of the most thoughtful and innovative design objects (over 500) invented or produced in the past five years, compiled by experts at the online industrial design magazine Core 77.
Edited by Allan Chochinov and Eric Ludlum
Published by Thames & Hudson
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