The extremely plain cover of this general study of typography is dominated by white and black. Not many words are wasted on it: here the makers get straight down to business, as if someone’s pushed a poster in your face. The panel were instantly won over by the perfect simplicity of the design when it became clear that the book was the ideal vehicle for a raft of well-balanced lessons in typography in past and present. With analyses and examples provided by twenty-one international specialists in the field of typography and communication, this book is compulsory reading when it comes to the distinction between typography and graphic design.
Naturally all this calls for efficient design with a strong sans serif font. In The Triumph of Typography you can find any chapter you want in the blink of an eye – no time to get bored. The pictorial matter gets the space it deserves, making it easy to switch back and forth between two different worlds.
‘It’s very much a rounded work,’ said someone, and it’s fair comment. Also, we at last have another supple integral binding: it gives the book, with all its modernity, a classical stature. Or is it actually aimed mainly at insiders? No: non-specialists too will be carried along without complaint.