One piece of advice

If there’s one piece of advice I would give to anyone who writes – and that goes for most of us – it is that you should set aside five minutes of your time (okay, he says, ten) and read Matthew Butterick’s Typography in ten minutes. Here’s why:

If you learn and follow these five typography rules, you will be a better typographer than nearly every writer – and even most graphic designers.

Butterick is a designer, writer, typographer, programmer, a lawyer, and one smart cookie. In addition to Practical Typography, the web book which gives the above advice, he has written Typography for Lawyers and Beautiful Racket. They are both recommended reading, and not just for lawyers.

Where most of the advice in Typography for Lawyers relates to that profession, there are some useful nuggets that apply to anyone. Beautiful Racket, on the other hand, serves as an introduction to programming, which is what ‘Racket’ is, after all: a language-oriented progamming language.

Butterick is also the designer of a number of fine fonts, including Valkyrie, Century Supra, Concourse and Hermes Maia. They are available from MB Fonts, along with the rest of his designs.