Available books

Detail in typography

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.

£12.50
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Typography papers 7

This occasional, book-length work is edited and produced at the Department of Typography, University of Reading, and is now published by Hyphen Press. It publishes extended articles on its subject, exploring topics to the length to which they want to go. Its scope is broad and international, its treatment – serious and lively.

£20.00
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Active literature: Jan Tschichold and New Typography

In the first book on Tschichold to be based on extensive archive research, Burke turns fresh and revealing light on his subject. He sets Tschichold in the network of artists and designers who constituted New Typography in its moment of definition and exploration, and puts new emphasis on Tschichold as an activist collector, editor and writer. Tschichold’s work is shown in colour throughout, in freshly made photographs of examples drawn from public and private collections. This is not a biography, but rather a discussion of the work seen in the context of Tschichold’s life and the times in which he lived.

£35.00
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Edward Wright: readings, writings

Born to South American parents, British citizen, cosmopolitan at heart, Edward Wright – painter and object-maker, typographer, writer, teacher – was an enigmatic presence in London’s post-War art and design scene. Wright has been described thus: ‘His subjects: human communication, the mundane, the street. His manner: sparing, self-critical, yet the work had vigorous attack and full conviction. His typical method: assemblage, with what was to hand.’

£6.00
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Morton Feldman says: selected interviews and lectures 1964–1987

The first of the Hyphen New Series, this is a book of thinking aloud – about music, about art, about making work, about life. Feldman was a wonderful talker, and much of the qualities of his conversation are captured in this book, both in its text and in its photographs. The book is essentially a documentary, with something of the same spirit as our Anthony Froshaug.

£25.00
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The stroke: theory of writing

This is the first English-language edition of a major piece of thinking about writing (in its visual manifestation). Noordzij’s short and powerful text, illustrated with his own diagrams and examples, is the best exposition of a theory that is making a still growing impact on designers, and on those thinking about writing and letters.

£15.00
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Typography papers 6

This occasional, book-length work is edited and produced at the Department of Typography, University of Reading, and is now published by Hyphen Press. It publishes extended articles on its subject, exploring topics to the length to which they want to go. Its scope is broad and international, its treatment – serious and lively.

£20.00
Cover of Typography papers 6

Modern typography: an essay in critical history

A brisk tour through the history of Western typography, from the time (c.1700 in France and England) when it can be said to have become ‘modern’. A spotlight is directed at different cultures in different times, to trace the developments and shifts in modern typography. Attention is given to ideas, to social context, and to technics, thus stepping over the limited and tired tropes of stylistic analysis. The second edition is now published.

£15.00
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Karel Martens: Counterprint

Now that stocks of Karel Martens: printed matter are exhausted, we have published a short book that shows some of the uncommissioned printed work of Martens, with an essay on ‘The world as a printing surface’ by Elliman. This is very much an object-book, in which the work is not so much reproduced as bodied forth.

£17.50
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Type now: a manifesto, plus work so far

A short and strong statement of position by a type designer. The book takes a wide view, taking in the business of present-day font production, and the technics and the ethics of type as software. As always, Smeijers’s arguments are informed by a strong historical sense. The book also shows his own work as a designer, and is published as a conclusion to the award to him of the Gerrit Noordzij Prize.

£17.50
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Designing books: practice and theory

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.

£17.50
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Typography papers 5

This occasional, book-length work is edited and produced at the Department of Typography, University of Reading, and is now published by Hyphen Press. It publishes extended articles on its subject, exploring topics to the length to which they want to go. Its scope is broad and international, its treatment – serious and lively.

£20.00
Cover of Typography papers 5

A view of early typography: up to about 1600

A reprint of this long-out-of-print and now classic work, which summarizes what can be known about the production and use of type in the first 150 years of printing. Originally a set of lectures, the book is an informal discourse by a master of his topic. The argument is illustrated with a large gathering of pictures. A new introduction by James Mosley explains the significance of the book and gives a short account of Carter’s life and work.

£25.00
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Unjustified texts: perspectives on typography

A book of writings from twenty-five years of engagement on the peripheries of both journalism and academic life, and drawn largely from small-circulation and now hard-to-access publications. Persistent themes include: editorial typography, the emergence of graphic design in Britain, emigré designers, Dutch typography, the work of critical modernist designers

£20.00
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What is a designer: things, places, messages

This long-established title shows powers of self-renewal, as new young readers find in it a stimulus to thought and action unavailable from more showy, duller items. An urgent book, it combines high-flown generalities with often striking specificity of reference. It addresses especially students at further education level in every design discipline, including architecture.

£12.50
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Anthony Froshaug: Typography & texts / Documents of a life

Presents the work and life of this essential typographer, until now too little known outside the circle of his friends and students. Froshaug was a deep and charismatic thinker-practitioner, whose insights return us to the fundamentals of typography. The book consists of two interacting volumes: the solid record of the work is placed against the contingencies of the life. A traditional monograph is unsettled by an exploration in documentary.

£40.00
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Fragments of utopia: collage reflections of heroic modernism

A set of collages made from mainly contemporary sources, which recount episodes in modernist architecture in the twentieth century. This is a story of a fragile and occasionally noble dream, in the context of a history going violently wrong. These images are supplemented by short parallel prose meditations. Wild’s images have a wonderful rightness of form. But they are far from idealized: politically charged, they have a disconcerting sense of erotics and low humour.

£18.00
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Paul Renner: the art of typography

The work and life of this German type and book-designer are, for the first time, presented at length and with full historical documentation. Renner lived through the first half of the twentieth century, and this book is, in effect, a history of typography in Germany in those years. It also speaks to present concerns in design, and especially to the search for a rationality deeper than one of easy rules of style.

£15.00
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Counterpunch: making type in the sixteenth century, designing typefaces now

A book that moves in towards an investigation into the technics of making metal type by hand, and then out towards a discussion of designing digital type now. In the course of the discussion, Smeijers takes in the fundamentals of designing and making letters, so that he can be read as a guide to type and font construction in any medium. Lively, pointed drawings and photographs complement an equally fresh text.

£22.50
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Models & Constructs: margin notes to a design culture

The author was a ‘maker’ – in words as well as in materials – and, now that he is dead, this book must be his testament. It is an account of his life and work, assembling particular events and their material outcomes within a large vision of life. It is the work of a believer in material and existential presence, in form, in continuity, in change.

£20.00
Cover of Models & Constructs

Forthcoming books

Counterpunch: making type in the sixteenth century, designing typefaces now

A book that moves in towards an investigation into the technics of making metal type by hand, and then out towards a discussion of designing digital type now. In the course of the discussion, Smeijers takes in the fundamentals of designing and making letters, so that he can be read as a guide to type and font construction in any medium. Lively, pointed drawings and photographs complement an equally fresh text.

Cover of Counterpunch

Human space

Human space is an English translation of one of the most comprehensive studies of space as we experience it. Since it was published in Germany in 1963, Bollnow’s text has become a key reading in architecture, anthropology, and philosophy. In 2004 the German edition was issued in its tenth impression. The book is serious academic research and something more – showing a great sensitivity to the near and the everyday. The text is enlivened and illustrated with many quotations, principally from German and English literature. Our edition is translated by Christine Shuttleworth and has an introduction by Joseph Kohlmaier, who places the work in its context of philosophical and architectural discussion.

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The transformer: principles of making Isotype charts

The visual work of Otto Neurath and his associates, now commonly known as Isotype, has been much discussed in recent years. This short book explains its essential principles: the work of ‘transforming’, or putting information into visual form. This deeper level of their work – which is applicable in all areas of design – is routinely neglected in the assumption that Isotype is just a matter of symbols and pictograms. At the core of the book is a previously unpublished essay by Marie Neurath, the principle Isotype transformer, which she wrote in the last year of her life. This is supplemented by Robin Kinross with commentary on illustrated examples of Isotype and other supporting short essays.

Cover of The transformer

Asleep in the afternoon

This is the novel first published in 1938 in London. We are publishing facsimile editions of this book and its precursor, Sugar in the air. A third book, God’s amateur: the writing of E.C. Large is being published alongside the two novels, as a companion.

Cover of Asleep in the afternoon

God’s amateur: the writing of E.C. Large

A book of and about E.C. Large, which contains a selection of his shorter writings – travel essays, reportage, reveries, reviews, critiques, autobiographical pieces – and which reveals the extent of his achievement. These show a notably exact writer, with sane no-nonsense views, and yet with great imagination. Some unpublished texts are shown in facsimile. Also here is a bibliography of his published writings (both ‘literary’ and scientific), and an essay by Stuart Bailey, which sees his work with present-day eyes.

Cover of God’s amateur

Sugar in the air

This is the novel first published in 1937 in London. We are publishing facsimile editions of this book and its sequel, Asleep in the afternoon. A third book, God’s amateur: the writing of E.C. Large is being published alongside the two novels, as a companion.

Cover of Sugar in the air

Typography papers 8

This occasional, book-length work is edited and produced at the Department of Typography, University of Reading, and is now published by Hyphen Press. It publishes extended articles on its subject, exploring topics to the length to which they want to go. Its scope is broad and international, its treatment – serious and lively.

Cover of Typography papers 8

Out of print books

Type spaces: in-house norms in the typography of Aldus Manutius

The books of Aldus Manutius possess an enduring appeal, for their sense of order and visual-semantic structure. After intensive examination of some Aldine books, Burnhill proposes a hypothesis about the co-ordination of the dimensions in type in this printing. It seems that a system of typographic measurement informed this work, two hundred years before such a system was made explicit in printing.

Cover of Type spaces

Typography papers 4

This occasional, book-length work is edited and produced at the Department of Typography, University of Reading, and is now published by Hyphen Press. It publishes extended articles on its subject, exploring topics to the length to which they want to go. Its scope is broad and international, its treatment – serious and lively.

Cover of Typography papers 4

Typography papers 2

This occasional, book-length work is edited and produced at the Department of Typography, University of Reading, and is now published by Hyphen Press. It publishes extended articles on its subject, exploring topics to the length to which they want to go. Its scope is broad and international, its treatment – serious and lively

Cover of Typography papers 2

Designing books: practice and theory

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.

Cover of Designing books

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