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 stimulating and generously 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.

Cleverly 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.