Fundamentals of typography / Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Basic principles are presented through detailed explanations, expanded illustrations, case studies, and reference material from leading design studios around the world. A sound understanding of type history and classification facilitates controlled, intelligent and thoughtful type usage, across a range of media. The Fundamentals of Typography builds upon these shared principles and will become an invaluable reference for creatives and designers alike.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 6)
• How to get the most out of this book (p. 8)
• 1 A brief history (p. 10)
• The history of type (p. 12)
• Cuneiform tablets (p. 14)
• Hieroglyphs (p. 15)
• Ideogram-based languages (p. 16)
• Phoenician characters (p. 18)
• The Greek alphabet (p. 20)
• Cyrillic languages (p. 22)
• Semitic and Aramaic languages (p. 24)
• The Roman alphabet (p. 26)
• The modern alphabet (p. 28)
• Moveable type, 1436 (p. 30)
• The effect of printing in Europe (p. 32)
• The Industrial Revolution, 1800s (p. 34)
• Arts and Crafts Movement, 1850s (p. 36)
• Modernism, 1910 (p. 38)
• 1950s (p. 42)
• 1960s (p. 44)
• 1970s (p. 46)
• 1980s (p. 48)
• 1990s (p. 50)
• Graphic design since 2000 (p. 52)
• 2 A few basics (p. 54)
• Typefaces and fonts (p. 56)
• Typeface anatomy (p. 57)
• Relative and absolute measurements (p. 58)
• X-height (p. 61)
• Basic terminology (p. 62)
• Majuscule and minuscule (p. 64)
• Set width (p. 65)
• Baseline grid (p. 66)
• The golden section (p. 68)
• Fibonacci sequence (p. 69)
• Standard paper sizes (p. 70)
• The page - how we read (p. 74)
• Dividing the page (p. 76)
• 3 Letterforms (p. 80)
• Type families (p. 82)
• Typeweight variations (p. 83)
• Frutiger's grid (p. 84)
• Types of serif (p. 86)
• Fractions (p. 88)
• Superscript and subscript (p. 89)
• Numerals (p. 90)
• Punctuation (p. 91)
• Diacritical marks (p. 92)
• Dashes (p. 94)
• Character spacing (p. 95)
• Expert sets and special characters (p. 96)
• Ligatures, dipthongs and sans serif logotypes (p. 98)
• Drop and standing capitals (p. 99)
• Small capitals (true and false) (p. 100)
• Italic and oblique (p. 101)
• Type classification systems (p. 102)
• Type classification in practice (p. 108)
• Newspaper text faces (p. 110)
• 4 Words and paragraphs (p. 112)
• Calculating line lengths (p. 114)
• Kerning and letterspacing (p. 116)
• Automated kerning tables (p. 117)
• Alignment (p. 118)
• Word spacing, hyphenation and justification (p. 122)
• Type detailing (p. 123)
• Leading (p. 124)
• Indents (p. 126)
• Indexes (p. 127)
• Type size (p. 128)
• Display type (p. 129)
• Reversing type (p. 130)
• Wraps and runarounds (p. 131)
• 5 Using type (p. 132)
• Hierarchy (p. 134)
• Colour (p. 136)
• Surprint, overprint and knockout (p. 138)
• Printing and type realisation (p. 140)
• Type on screen (p. 144)
• Grids and fonts (p. 146)
• Generating type (p. 148)
• Legibility and readability (p. 150)
• Texture (p. 152)
• Type as image (p. 154)
• Concrete poetry, typograms, trompe l'oeil and calligrammes (p. 156)
• Type in the environment (p. 158)
• Scale (p. 160)
• Vernacular (p. 162)
• Appropriation (p. 164)
• Typographic democracy (p. 166)
• Ownership (p. 167)
• Proof marks (p. 168)
• Conclusion (p. 170)
• Contacts (p. 171)
• Glossary (p. 172)
• Index (p. 174)
• Font index (p. 176)

Author notes provided by Syndetics