What decisions lie behind the way a book is designed? How are readers of books helped or hindered by the choices that a designer, publisher, or printer has made in presenting an author's text to its intended audience? Are there any lessons we can learn from a study of the books that have been produced in previous centuries? In this illustrated volume, Alan Bartram, a distinguished book designer and typographer, answers many of these questions and provides his personal view of some of the successes and failures of his predecessors. He looks with fresh eyes at a varied range of books published in western Europe and America in the last half-millennium, concerning himself in particular with readability, function, and clarification of meaning. He also discusses how different elements of text, decoration, and illustration were combined in the layout of the printed page, and he comments on whether the resultant design is successful. Concisely written and handsomely produced, this visual history of book design and production is intended for a wide audience - students of graphic design and the history of the book, bibliophiles, collectors, and all who are interested in the visual communication of ideas.

Five Hundred Years of Book Design

Arts & Photography

Alan Bartram

Graphic Design

Yale University Press

This lively and authoritative book explores the influence of the Bauhaus and modernism on typography and book design. Distinguished book designer and author Alan Bartram examines work by such key figures as Max Bill, F. T. Marinetti, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, Jan Tschichold, and Paul Rand. All of the carefully chosen examples-some of which have not been previously reproduced-clearly demonstrate the modernist revolution that took place in graphic design. In an informative introductory essay, Bartram surveys the German art and design school known as the Bauhaus. Under Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus intended to create an academic, theoretical, and practical synthesis of all forms of visual expression-a marrying of art, architecture, industry, and design that had never been attempted before. Although the Bauhaus existed for only fourteen years, from 1920 to 1934, Bartram asserts that its philosophy influenced the appearance of almost every kind of modernist artifact throughout the twentieth century and continues to do so today. Engagingly written and handsomely illustrated, this volume is a valuable resource for designers and book lovers everywhere.

Bauhaus, Modernism, and the Illustrated Book

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

What decisions lie behind the way a book is designed? How are readers of books helped or hindered by the choices that a designer, publisher or printer has made in presenting an author's text to its intended audience? Are there any lessons we can learn from a study of books produced over the last 500 years? In this study of book design of the past five centuries, Alan Bartram looks at the successes and failures of his predecessors. Some classics of layout and production are examined, and Bartram looks with fresh eyes at a varied range of books published in Western Europe and America in that period. From the generally uncluttered layout of the Italian books of the Renaissance, the fashion changed to the more ornamental designs of the French. Later on the mass production of books during the 19th century resulted in a lowering of standards, which in turn left the field clear for the elegant books produced by the private presses of the day. The attention to detail given by theses private presses has had a marked influence on current designers and publishers, some of whose books are examined here. This visual history of book design and production is intended for a wide audience - students of graphic design and the history of the book, bibliophiles, collectors and all who are interested in the visual communication of ideas

History

World

The British Library Publishing Division

In the early decades of the twentieth century, European artists, poets, and designers called for the destruction of outdated assumptions about vision and language. Numerous manifestos resulted, demanding new artistic forms. None of these manifestos was more aggressive and poetic, or wider in scope than Filippo Tomasso Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto of 1909. Painting, sculpture, literature, architecture, theatre, cinema, and music were all caught up in its net. Typographyuntil then a distant relative in the artsalso played a major role in Marinetti’s program.Written by leading design scholar Alan Bartram, this fascinating book examines the rise and evolution of the Futurists’ approach to typography and graphic design, placing it within the context of contemporary artistic and literary movements. The volume features examples of some eighty Futurist books or other designs for print, many of them relatively unknown or previously unpublished, accompanied by new translations of over twenty of the featured texts. Bartram illuminates the complicated meanings of the Futurist designers’ graphic works in order to provide a new understanding of their extraordinary and influential visual language.

Futurist Typography and the Liberated Text

The British Library

Tombstone Lettering

Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd

Reprint of the first edition. "An attempt to show by illustration, rather than by explaining in words, the main changes in type forms over 500 years of printing." The foldout type specimen of the first edition is reprinted at the back. 116, 8 pages. cloth, dust jacket.. folio.

Atlas of Typeforms

James Sutton

Book Sales

First edition. This book is the long-awaited successor to the classic An Atlas of Typeforms, the great visually-led history of type that Alan Bartram and James Sutton produced in 1968. Much has changed in the last 40 years, not least the teaching of typography and the means by which it is created. Because current design methods do not require the drawing and tracing of letterforms in order to produce layouts, we have lost our close connection with them. Few understand their history, their appearance, and how and why they have developed as they have. Nearly 75 different types are shown in their original metal forms, just as they were in the Atlas of Typeforms. But an entirely new feature is the author's attempt to place the types in their historical context. By including photographs of contemporary inscriptions on buildings and monuments, Alan Bartram explores the relationship between printed and architectural letterforms and their parallel course from the Renaissance until Victorian times. The opportunities offered for graphic and type designers in the digital age are greater than ever before. But without an understanding of the visual make-up of letterforms and some knowledge of their fascinating history, designers cannot fully exploit the potential of type. In this book, Alan Bartram educates us in these critical areas. Co-published with The British Library. Sales rights: North and South America; available elsewhere from The British Library

Typeforms: A History

Oak Knoll Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Alan Bartram. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Alan Bartram

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Alan Bartram. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Five Hundred Years of Book Design

Bauhaus, Modernism, and the Illustrated Book

Five Hundred Years of Book Design

Futurist Typography and the Liberated Text

Tombstone Lettering

Atlas of Typeforms

Typeforms: A History