I've been a huge fan of Dave Addey's website (typesetinthefuture.com) and articles for many years. As a result, I've look forward to this book since it was announced, quite sometime ago. I also pre-ordered as soon as I could.
The content itself is just a good as I'd expected, with great, well-researched in-depth articles on all the films listed in the book's synopsis.
However, I feel it fair to say that I was very disappointed by the book's design, both in terms of layout and - ironically - its typography.
The design choices came as something of a surprise, as Addey's current website is very pared back in its presentation. This has the advantage of giving the reader the ability to concentrate subject matter and - in particular - on the individual type examples.
Similarly, I also own quite a few other scifi 'art' books produced by publisher, Abrams. In all other examples, those books have balanced clean and fresh in their approach and presentation. They have not disappointed and remain favourite references.
And I think that's where the issue lies…
By comparison to both the website and and the publisher's other books, 'Typeset…' feels overstuffed. There seems to have been a decision to force colour and background onto every page and layouts don't feel well thought through.
As the book is one on typography - albeit from films with lots of visual references - I wish the approach had been more minimalist and brighter (quite a bit of the book is very dark) to allow the content to breathe a bit. Also, the general book body typography chops and changes quite jarringly, often within the same articles and layouts.
All of that said, I'd still recommend the purchase, as the content still (just about) wins out over the packaging and design choices.
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