Shaping Text: Type, Typography and the Reader

Shaping Text takes a practical and broad approach to typography. It is aimed at design students and graphic designers, and also at those who are concerned with content: writers, editors, and publishers. Showing a wide range of examples from first-rate designers across the world, the book examines why and how typographic designs work well in a given context. Particular attention is given to the team play between the text itself—written language—and the design—the shaping of the text—to form a new, multilevel visual message with a complex content.

Jan Middendorp is a freelance editor, writer and designer working in Berlin. He is the author of such reference books as Dutch Type (2004), Type Navigator (2011, with TwoPoints.net), Shaping Text (2012) and Hand to Type (2012). Since 2007 he has been the editor of MyFonts' bi-monthly newsletters, which reach an audience of over a million users. He has written about type, typography, performance and media for a variety of magazines including Eye (London), Typo (Prague), Etapes (Paris), tipoGrafica (Buenos Aires) and Items (Amsterdam).