Jost Hochuli is a Swiss typographer and graphic designer. After study at the Kunstgewerbeschule St. Gallen, he trained as a compositor with the printer Zollikofer and at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich; his education was completed in 1958–9 in Adrian Frutiger’s class at the Ecole Estienne. Since then he has practised as a freelance graphic designer, eventually specializing in book design. In 1979 he co-founded the co-operatively run publishing company VGS Verlagsgemeinschaft St. Gallen, for which much of his book design work has been done. He has taught at the schools at Zurich and then St. Gallen since 1967. As writer and editor, his books include Das Detail in der Typografie (1987, revised edition 2005; an English-language edition, Detail in typography is forthcoming), Bücher machen (1989), Buchgestaltung in der Schweiz (1993), Designing books: practice and theory (1996), _Jost Hochuli: Drucksachen, vor allem Bücher_ (2002). He has edited and designed the annually published ‘Typotron’ series of booklets (1983–98) and the Edition ‘Ostschweiz’ (from 2000).
Jost Hochuli’s concise guide to micro-typography considers everything that can happen within a column of text. The book was published first, in several languages, in 1987 and 1988. Hochuli then developed the German text, publishing it again in 2005, with Verlag Niggli in Switzerland. That new edition is the basis for our book: translating and adapting the work to English-language conditions. (For an explanation of why we have let the book go out of print, see here.)
Jost Hochuli & Robin Kinross
A vastly experienced Swiss book-designer explains his trade with plentiful illustrations of designed books. Two complementary components are added: an essay by Hochuli on some dogmas of typography, and arguing for an attitude of critical openness of mind; and reproduction of books designed by Hochuli himself, with analytical captions by Kinross. (The book is being left out of print, for reasons given here.)
