I had to purchase this book for my typography class. I am a student at Pratt Institute. Though the book is great in terms of learning the formal "rules" of design it can get a little dry at points. The book is a wonderful example of "good" formal design. But maybe its me...sometimes I think some of the great design isnt with how well you adhere to the rules but how well you can fail with them. Its beautiful to take all the wonderful formal characteristics that are listed here and throw them out the window and let intution play a rule let this book influence you but dont let it hinder you

This is what you need if you are anyone who will ever use type in any area of your life...period. Do not buy any other books on typography until you have this one and digested its wisdom. They don't refer to it as the 'Typographer's Bible' for no reason.

i had to buy this book for my typography class, this book is what it's all about. it explains in detail the origin and evolution of typography as its life is timelined to teach the deciple about what he needs. Bringhurst lets you know when to use type, how to use it, and where. as well as all the do's & dont's. I trust this man, you should too.

Good information but rather a long text for what I got out of it. Gives much positioning/spacing information that I do intuitively anyway. The industry seems to love this book but I think that it could be better with a rewrite to make it shorter and give clearer headings and divisions. For an industry person fascinated by typefaces it does include comments on many different typeface origins.

Bringhurst is individual genius who has synthesized the fragmentary knowledge about typography into a singular vision not seen since Tschichold's Die Neue Typographie. Bringhust's list of glyphs is indispensible; it has helped answer that qustion, "What is that puctuation mark called and is this how it should be used?" many times. His method of organizing type faces is historical, reflecting his romantic nature. Catherin Dixon's method of organizing and describing type faces is more practical, but does not offer the thrill that you have joined the ancient society of typographers.