Butterick’s Practical Typography
by Matthew Butterick

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Loved everything about this on-line book. I’ve been mildly interested in typography for years, but only as a dabbler: I love a proper em dash, end sentences with only a single space, keep an eye out for attractive layouts to emulate, and, of course, avoid comic sans. This book helps crystalize things I’ve mused about, and explains why some design decisions work and others don’t. It also gives me a great foundation to use as a teacher whose students do most of their work via keyboard. (Eighth grade ain’t too early to start getting it right.)

Butterick definitely practices what he preaches—the book is gorgeous and the writing is sharp and witty. A sample:

For those who want to get right to the heart of it, he includes a Typography in ten minutes chapter and a Summary of key rules.

My only regret is that many of his suggestions can’t be implemented in Google Docs which is my primary word processor these days. But I still keep full-featured word processors around for work that requires precise design, and Google may evolve to be more design-friendly in time.