The Elements of Typographic Style: Version 4.0: 20th Anniversary Edition

"I’m actually typesetting a book of poetry right now. And I’m reminded of the very specific technical requirements of poetry as opposed to nonfiction prose. What would otherwise be minor considerations of point size or text width, rules about spaces above and below, indents. All of these loom large. If you are typesetting prose, the copy is not too threatening. Essentially it’s just running in a continuous flow. Poetry? Every single line has a meaning and how you break those lines up is deeply significant. Whether you continue on to a new page, or if you break a line or a stanza visually. Placement on the page is endowing incremental meaning to those breaks. “In poetry, every single line has a meaning and how you break those lines up is deeply significant” I would think that Robert Bringhurst came to typography perhaps even out of frustration with the typesetting of his own work. In 2018 I had the absolute honour of being a juror with him for the Association of University Presses book show. That was intimidating, let me tell you! Bringhurst is an acknowledged master of typographic design, and his book is regarded like a Bible in the trade. We went through the mountains of books you are asked to review, we each had our coloured post-its marking those volumes that we each thought deserved further conversation, ending up with a nicely sized pile of books that we both agreed on. Of course, we also had our distinct piles. To actually have the gumption to say, ‘hey, Robert, did you notice this cute little thing on this book?’ was really quite audacious of me. I think I managed to sway him on one or two, and he had absolutely noticed things that I had not noticed on other books. An amazing experience. His book, The Elements of Typographic Style is simply stunning in the way that it illustrates the concepts of typography that it describes. That itself seems to me to be the most perfect form of graphic design, right there. The book is executing as it explains, and illustrating as it describes. It’s both beautiful and aspirational for a designer to consider. And as you say, so beautifully written that it’s almost like a meditation . For certain it is one of those books that you can just open to a spread before you, read it and then pause to consider."