Looking at Spencer's Pioneers of Modern Typography

Looking at Pioneers of Modern Typography

My assigned book was Herbert Spencer's Pioneers of Modern Typography. Once I pulled the book off the shelf, I noticed the book was almost a perfect square and had a hard cover. The cover was shiny, but only because it was wrapped in a protective plastic. Judging from the numerous dents in the hard cover, I assumed that this book has been used many times. However, once I opened the book, the smooth paper was clean and crisp. The paper inside had a matte finish, which I love.

Pioneers of Modern Typography contains short but very informative summaries of graphic designers and their use of type in their compositions. Although the cover seems scattered, I find it balanced and I admire that the cover designer was obviously inspired by some of the graphic artists in the book, such as Herbert Bayer's designs. 

After reading a little in the book, I find that this book is absolutely essential! Not only are the summaries brief and handy, I believe that a successful graphic designer (and typographer) must know the designers that come before him/her, and should be constantly inspired by those historical achievements and ideas.

I also love the layout in the book. The structures on the pages are very clean and organized. As you can see in the images below, the informative text are placed on the opposite page to the image or you can find the text at the very top. This option leaves a lot of space between the text body and the images. It's minimalistic! Simple! I really dig that negative space because I believe it helps the reader's eye move around and makes it a lot easier to read and identify information.