Daily Thoughts 12/22/2009

Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, better known as J. J. Grandville, or just Grandville (* 3 September 1803, Nancy -- † 17 March 1847, Vanves, lângă Paris), was a French designer, book illustrator and caricaturist.

Daily Thoughts 12/22/2009

I've been reading Thinking With Type A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students by Ellen Lupton. I changed the font type inside my blog to Verdana because it is designed to be used on a computer. There were some interesting ideas in this book. For example, the blog I am writing is an open text because it can be changed constantly, unlike a fixed text like a printed book. I also like the idea of high page density of letters making people comfortable. Personally, I find too much whitespace annoying in blogs.

After reading more of Thinking With Type this evening, it is not a book which I can recommend as a text about typography. It is very beautiful to look at, but it lacked creative flair. Most of the images did not have much color in them. There was a tendency to use monochromatic and light colors in the pictures.

There were a few things which were useful in the book though, the different ways to break up paragraphs of text were interesting, and the idea of grid layouts for the web seemed practical. The book has its good points, but not enough of them. Maybe my ambivalence is because I do not know enough about the subject yet: a fairly advanced understanding of typography may be necessary to understand this book. I'm wavering on whether this is a good or bad book.