Book Design (Andrew Haslam), Book Typography (Ari Rafaeli)

Posted by rafael_lueder in

General Discussions

2 Apr 2007 — 4:10pm

Hello typophiles,

I came across these two books the other day: Book Design by Andrew Haslam and Book Typography by Ari Rafaeli.

I was wondering if any of you have read them and, if you did, what do you think of them?

I already own Book Design by Hendel, Designing Books by Hochuli and Notes on Book Design by Birdsall, do these two books bring any new information worth the purchase?

charles_e
2 Apr 2007 — 5:18pm

Well, I'm biased of course. Rafaeli quoted one of my emails without my permission. He could have had permission (1) if he asked, and (2) if the email was explained -- it was a private email to Rich Hendel and was a follow-up to a telephone conversation. Unless the phone conversation was included, the email made no sense -- which may have been his goal.

His real purpose seemed to be to get at Rich Hendel, who I both admire and call a friend. I take the whole thing as deceitful.

With that in background, I suppose anything I say about this being a more or less useless book, and not that well set or designed, will have to be viewed as biased. However, that is my view.

Charles Ellertson

ben_archer
3 Apr 2007 — 3:40am

There is a very well-put review of Ari Rafaeli's book by Robin Kinross for Eye magazine at
http://www.eyemagazine.com/review.php?id=126&rid=606

Last year at some point I borrowed a copy from my University library and read it; of the other titles you mention I know only 'Designing Books' by Jost Hochuli, but I suspect that they all might provide a bigger, and perhaps more balanced picture than 'Book Typography'.

Bert Vanderveen
3 Apr 2007 — 4:29am