I agree with the John Berry's statement that more attention to detail is needed in the field of typography, but with less rigidity. I worked at a magazine where the editors, not the art director, were ultimately in charge of typography throughout the whole magazine, from headlines to body copy. I was the production assistant and worked with both teams to create the magazine, and often got conflicting commands from each corner. The art director wanted to play with type, especially in headlines, and would set type that touched and overlapped on occasion. In the first round of corrections, the editors would invariably circle each offending spot where letters would touch and scrawl instructions to "fix the kerning." I couldn't help but think that with all their training and attention to detail, they had ultimately missed the point.

There were many battles between that art director and the editor of the magazine, and invariably the editor won. This particular publication fostered a culture where rules and rigidity won over expressiveness and interpretation almost every time, and I think the magazine suffered for it. All the articles looked the same, for they followed the same style guides, which were very rigid and allowed for little leeway. Typography had been taken out of the art director's hands entirely and was instead the domain of the editors.

Certainly some style guides are necessary, and an authority is needed to determine that consistency exists and that basic type rules are followed. But I think that this authority also needs an understanding of design and the visual communication process. A little less rigidity would go a long way.

The author has asked for other people's experience. In our shop, several people have a good degree of typographic knowledge. What I think is most interesting is that we have the capability of working in both directions. That is, often text will be created or reworked to fit into the design more esthetically, as well as the more traditional process of setting the type within the boundaries of the design. I think this kind of flexibility is a great advantage in today's design processes (when it is done well of course).

This goes against the principal of strict division between content and layout. However, I think there is a promising future in "designing" text and graphic integrally. As many of the necessary production/technology restrictions are eliminated, and as mundane tasks become automated, designers and copywriters can concentrate on more creative areas of their work. Indeed, in our shop, there is a beginning tendency toward designer/copywriter as a single person.

I couldn't say that I agree or disagree with this article. It is true that of typography now a day is ignored. Graphic designers in general are aiming more towards the imagery-the photography or illustration of their work. Typography then becomes secondary in the design, which I think causes two problems. One, that the overall type will not be handled as well, it will not be "massaged" as well. Second, and the most important is that type would have a higher risk to not evoke the message to its audience.
I agree with the article that the gap amongst design and editorial is just getting bigger. As technology advances there's a higher risk of us getting lazier. This means less attention to detail. Usually in our workplace people specify on the jobs they do, so the job they know, we do not. All I have to say is to avoid mistakes like the one mentioned in the article about that chapter in small caps, we should all be a little aware and have an understanding of what happens around our design because at the end it reflects upon you as well. What some people don't understand is that it's teamwork; you should be able to pick on things, like they are able to pick on your designs.
My disagrees with this article come to play when the rules are mentioned. Rules especially in typography are difficult. As a designer I don't like to go by the design rules if I can break them I will. But I find it different in typography; I feel that the rules are there to be followed not just to have an understanding of them. How can we use the rules set just as guidelines, when typographies goal is to communicate. That's like saying you don't care much about the message that is being sent. For example, I find it odd that this article about typesetting, editorial, design and so on has broken typography rules from every aspect. From em and en dashes to smart apostrophes. ATTENTION TO DETAIL. The only way I see to solve this is to study your rules and know them by heart. I'm a junior in college soon to turn a senior; I was just recently introduced to the typography rules. As soon as you know those rules are set you start noticing all the wrong things about typography from articles in a magazine to product packages. From there little by little these rules reflect upon your work until naturally you know them by heart and you notice things in a snap. Practice makes perfect.
Rules are not just there to be followed, there has to be an understanding to be able to get it right. To know the rules and just throw them all over your layout doesn't mean you followed the rules. Some people like putting that there just because it looks better, sure that's important but does it fit the purpose or defeats it. Those are the decisions that have to be made between typography and design.
To avoid embarrassing mistakes being produced, our knowledge of design vs. editorial has to eventually balance out. We cannot expect that a person who specifies on editorial will read along the same lines that we want. We have to make sure that our design and message communicate correctly, then that other person will be in charge of small tweaks. Doesn't it make you feel more secure of your work, when you know you tweaked it yourself and all there is left is just a few adjustments, that nothing is coming to you as a huge surprise. As designers we should take more control over what is going on around our designs. Especially know a days were some works don't even go to another pe

I am a designer who has always been highly type conscious, and go through all my jobs with regards to kerning, hyphenation, gray space, etc. However, I know many, many designer who not only do not know much about type, but don't seem to care either. I know a successful advertising art director who uses Times almost entirely because he doesn't seem to have any awareness of font usage, and another who once asked me "Why does anyone need anything more than Times and Antique Olive?" Type awareness is extremely rare, and I can count on one hand the number of AD's and designers I've worked with over the past 25 years who were critical with their typography. Special credit goes to Roger Black, who I worked for for a short time in the mid-90's, who was the most type-literate and critical designer I've ever met, and was a real inspiration for my own type-awareness.

The points in John's article are very well made, this lack of knowledge extends to the point that few know the proper apostrphe to even use in their "typography,' as the applications substitute ASCII apostrophes/quote marks for true typographer's marks.

I made the decision to train my staff as we work, day in and day out regarding typography, being largely self-taught (reading a lot!). It's rare to find staff to hire, even experienced designers, with sufficient depth of typographic knowledge. Most prefer style over substance, and simply allow their software applications to take control.

But, even when I was creating a lot of hand-lettering 15 years ago, many Sr. Art directors asked for things in lettering that looked just plain bad.

All things being equal, as a type designer, I tend to look even more closely at type and how it's used, both in my own design firm and elsewhere.

The cure? If it's too late for someone to go to school, there are many book available that teach typographic principles.

John, perhaps you have or perhaps a column could give us a short list of your recommendations. Start with Bringhurst, and build from there!

I noticed this "trend" years ago - you see it every time you glance at an ad and see poor grammar, spelling, or typesetting that screams at you from the headline, never MIND the fine print. We lost a lot more than just the typesetter when we all got Macs on our desks. In addition to being a graphic designer, I am an elected school board member, and I see poor spelling, grammar and writing style in well-educated people as well as school kids. We designers have much more responsibility in this process than we know - whatever we produce that is printed in large quantities or put out there in mass media for everyone to see/read had better demonstrate skill in all these areas, not just "making it look good." You never know just who is learning what from what they read.

I was fascinated to read there was actually a name for what I do. My primary role, in our two-person operation, is writing. However, I developed a taste (and I'm told an eye) for type and am constantly learning, reading and playing with it as much as I can... While my partner is the one with the design and production skills, he's given me free rein to select faces and oversee their use. You're right, it should be only natural that I want what I write (and even what I don't) to be appropriately presented, legible and readable. Thank you for giving a name to what I previously thought of and jokingly referred to as being a "backseat art director."

I hope this means that I can add 'Type Director' to my resume.

My company hired an agency for "rebranding" (even though they have no expertise in corporate identity work) that suggested using Goudy Old Style and Century Gothic as our corporate typefaces, and my company accepted their suggestion. Enough said.

bsooy, I second your idea about suggestions for books on typographic principles. I have only read Bringhurst (pretty much because Tufte puts him on his reading list). Where to go from here?

OK, I'm sure I'm one of the people you guys are complaining about. Self-taught, I know I get it wrong sometimes.

But, it's not that I don't care, I look for information a lot, but what I find is an abundance of these articles that lament the demise of good typography and almost never an article about how to produce good typography. When should en and em dashes be used? What is grayspace? Why was metal type so good? Sorry, I can't afford to hire you, because, as I'm sure you all know, very few clients will pay anything extra for em dashes and exceptional kerning. Maybe you could sell a nice column on good typography to creativepro.com. I would read it and my typography would improve.

Thanks

For those who are still wondering where typographers have gone, ask a production artist who makes a living trying to make poorly-trained designers look literate. Education seems to be of secondary importance in a country that worships whichever shallow celebrity big media decides to promote this week. At the age of 42, I'm considering my first tattoo: an apostrophe. Any suggestions for which typeface?

I believe that there should be a more conscious effort on everyone's behalf when it comes to typesetting. Being a graphic designer, I feel that it is important to know first hand about the rules of typography and to know about proper typesetting just in case there will be no one else to work in that area. I also feel that working in teams can only help as errors and mistakes can be eliminated by more than one person on the project.
As far as the separation between designers and typesetters go, I feel that in order for a designer to be a good designer, they need to have those typesetting skills so that they won't have to rely on a typesetter to get the text flowing beautifully on a page. This is not to say that typesetters are not needed because they are. Especially when others have little to no knowledge about typography or typesetting. Just as the article stated, there are a lot of things being put out there even today with very poor typographic aspects. In these cases, it would be very wise to have designs worked on by typesetters if the designer is not capable of doing this on his own.
I do feel that in the whole design process, typography in general gets less attention than other aspects such as imagery, color, messages, etc. It seems that in many cases, there just seems to be no attention to things such as rag, line length, kerning, tracking, widows and orphans, just to name a few. In much of the examples of type that I have viewed so far this quarter, it seems that text was just dropped onto the page and just left alone. I think that there are some designers who either don't know that much about typography and typesetting, don't want to take the time or effort to typeset or just don't care about it so they make no effort in this area. This is where the typesetter can be valuable. The text can just be sent out and worked on by someone who knows what they are doing if the designer is not up to it. Ultimately, I believe there should just be more effort put into typography aspects no matter who does it. I feel that typesetters should be used when they are needed and that designers should raise their awareness of typography.

One of the biggest challenges I face on a regular basis occurs when I sit down to write an essay. For some odd reason I still have to utilize my trusty blue or black ink pen and some notebook paper in order to produce consistently coherent content. It forces me to think about what I'm writing in much more detail than if I simply start plugging away on my laptop. This is partially due to the fact that I can't easily strike a delete key and reword something too quickly when using a more traditional writing method. My college-ruled notebook paper does end up looking like I had no idea what I was doing while writing the initial draft, but the scribbles on the page are all part of a thorough investigation that I conduct in an effort to make the writing as efficient as possible. Now that I've taken two courses that have focused exclusively on typography-learning rules and subtle nuances of certain typefaces as well as how good typography can be a powerfully persuasive component of a design solution-I feel much more inclined to pay extra attention to the decisions I am making as early-on in the design process as the writing of the first draft.
I can see how in the "ancient days," there might have been some inconsistencies in typography that slipped through the cracks. Having the copy sent back and forth between the editorial and design departments could have caused design decisions to be made by the proofreading department, or editorial decisions to be made by a graphic designer who really did not have the expertise in writing or proofreading copy. Now that graphic designers have the opportunity to actually write the copy and exercise what they know about creating good typography in one phase of the design process, there is an even greater risk that errors will go unchecked. It's one thing to know how to type. It's another thing to know how to write. Most importantly, it's still an entirely different skill all together to understand both of these components in regards to creating beautiful typography.
Designers need to be much more aware of some of the rules of typography that make text much easier to read. Anyone can learn to type words on a page, but in order to step things up to the next level, a graphic designer must care about his/her typography. It used to be that the designer made some typographic decisions and then sent the spec'd type specimen to be typeset by professional typesetting system. A lot of bad design that is in our faces everyday clearly illustrates that a large number of graphic designers have no clue as to what smart quotes or "em" and "en" dashes are-and to think that there are complete font sets out there that let you choose from many different faces within a font family that allow you to have a lot of great features which used to take typesetters a much longer time to create. Having access to all these great many extras within extended font families doesn't make a designer's typography any better if he/she does not know how to effectively use what's available.
Overall, I feel that too many "graphic designers" are nothing more than people who have been given a computer and an opportunity to be "creative" on a time schedule. There are always many exceptions to this feeling I have-I constantly see good typography too-but not as frequently as I see the worst of it. I am hoping to change this however. With every piece I design, I am going to try to maintain a consistently high level of typographic excellence that mak

Today, when almost everything depends on a computer, the world of typography cannot avoid this fact as well. Therefore, many things have been changed from time to time. In this materialistic world, if something is not worthy of investment, it should be done away with. Since changing technology changed the design process, some positions such as Typesetters and Type Directors were considered as redundant jobs. Therefore, they have gradually disappeared from the field. Maybe it happened because some people believed computers could do everything the same as humans. In fact, many unforgivable mistakes were done because people were too much counted on computers.
Thus, whatever how computers can unbelievably help people finish typographic jobs, It still need professionals such as Typesetters in charge. Humans often have to use their experiences to solve problems. Indeed, no printed item can be designed and no typeface selected unless knowing the audience of projects. For example, if the audience is either very young or very old, using a larger body text type so it can be read more easily. None of computers can make these decisions for us. Man should make last decisions and proofread every job at utmost.

Although I believe many people agree with this thought, very few numbers of professionals, especially Type Directors or Type Houses exist in the field today. Most typesetting is done in-house, where it's left to the designers or their assistants (Berry, creativepro). At this point, I think it's acceptable because I understand that people want to cut their budgets to be alive in this commercial world. However, it seems that most people who take care of typographic job instead of the real Typesetters are limited to basic typography principles. Extremely careless and remiss typographic works are often seen in everyday life. Using all capital letters in body text, inserting two spaces after a period, or altering fonts is a bad example. I don't know why these kinds of mistakes happened. Whoever takes care of typographic jobs is supposed to know its fundamentals. I ask myself that "He or she doesn't know it, does he or she?" or "He or she isn't careful enough, is he or she?" Whatever the answers are, I agree with Mr. Brandy.
A knowledge of basic design is always helpful because once you know it, you will know when rules may be broken without doing harm to the final design. (Qtd. In Using Type Right 1)

Rules can be broken or avoided. Moreover, I think the best design rarely come from just one's head; brainstorming and team work more possible bring to a perfect work. If an editor makes a mistake, other people can help to correct it. It should not be rely on just one person. Perhaps this is a good solution to get rid of unwise and unworkable typographic designs from our life, even if there is no Typesetters, Type Directors, or even Type Houses exist anymore.

Works Cited: Brandy, Philip. Using Type Right. Cincinnati: North Light, 1993.
Berry, John D. Creativepro homepage. Dot-font: OK to typeset. February 17 2003<http://www.creativepro.com/files/story_images/feature/18236.html.>

Many things tend to change from time to time and it is up to us to make sure there is no loss in quality as this changing process takes place. As times progress things tend to become a lot easier to handle, due to the increase in technological tools. This should not impair us as designers! We should strive a lot harder to make our work look and feel as if it has been carefully critiqued like it was in early typography days.
The use of the Macintosh and the PC computers has taken design into an era where typography can be set by almost anyone who can learn how to handle such programs like QuarkXPress and InDesign. For this single reason I believe it is ultimately important that design schools stress the use of good typography to their students. I believe typography to be very important because it is what makes or breaks your design.
Here at the Savannah College of Art and Design we consider typography to be one of the most essential design elements. Each of our work is carefully looked at by our pears as well as our professor and given timely feedback on ways in which we could improve the look and feel of the design to create a more interesting and legible layout.
For every project that is assigned the students have to submit type studies of different fonts that they are planning to use within their own design. These type studies include looking at different typefaces with alternate point sizes, leading, kerning and overall readability of the chosen font. We then select the most appropriate solution and begin to layout our text within our own designs. These designs are then critiqued over and over again taking into consideration not only the chosen layout structure but also the focus on weather the font and the typesetting is working well with the rest of the design.
On an average I would have to say that each piece that a student submits is looked over anywhere between 3 to 4 times by about 15 different viewers. I believe this process allows us to make comparisons to what is working and what does not work.
I do agree that there has been a drop in typesetting quality with the evolution of the layout programs used today. Typography was close to perfect when it went through the hand of many different viewer who where making corrections. Today, specially the work on the Internet, has a considerable amount of typographic flaws. Every Thursday in my Typography II class we bring in examples of good and bad type. Some of the material that is shown is good but most of the examples are hurtful to the human eye. Most of the type is difficult to read and does not appear to have been carefully thought of as to who it is going to be targeting. Leaving the Internet aside for a second, I have to say that I have seen some print work that should not even have been printed. I have seen billboards with letter spacing so tight that you cold not tell the difference between certain letterforms. Line spacing that is about a mile away from each other and lets not forget about the Mississippi rivers that are created when justified text is not carefully smoothed.
Design school should focus on the readability issue rather than stressing how to use certain programs. That is why it is called a "design school."

To agree with Mr. Berry would be both truthful and at the same time almost hypocritical for me. I completely understand and believe that designers today do not know enough about typesetting or maybe about typography in general. I agree that it would benefit us, in the long run, to learn more about typesetting and typography and that sometimes only the basics are covered. However the reason that I feel this is somewhat hypocritical for me personally is that I was born with a computer underneath my fingers
I, like most people of my generation, was born into a world where computers already existed and interfaces such as Mac and PC were already being used for at least some time.
In fact I can type faster that I can write. I find this somewhat amazing. My mother finds this absolutely and completely mind-boggling. The computer should be used as another tool and not an end all be all solution. My generation has made it into this. In fact until I read this article I did not even know what typesetting was, except for maybe a brief look at it in History Of Graphic Design.
Because most designers, who have come from my generation, also feel this way, type has truly suffered. Typography truly is no longer the great process it once was. It has become much less of an art form and much more of a necessity so to speak. If you look in almost any publication today things falter at least somewhere. Mr. Berry talked about that entire chapter being set in small caps. Now, honestly how many books have we read where at least one of the chapters is set smaller or sometimes even larger in print. I can tell you that most of the books, not textbooks mind you, but just regular fiction, non-fiction, and so forth have at least seen this mistake. I used to wonder why the type in one chapter was different from the type in another, I guess now I know.

Working as a designer/copy editor at a daily newspaper, I encounter the issues discussed in the article almost every night. Like myself, many of the designers who handle typesetting and layouts were trained primarily in journalism. The design and typographic knowledge that my colleagues have is self-taught-out of books, seminars and periodicals. This "rudimentary training in typography" the author speaks of is essentially the reason I decided to go back to school in graphic design. Sure, I understood how to operate computer programs and knew the basic rules of type-no widows and orphans-but I had very little understanding of why these rules were created in the first place. Now that I do have a better understanding of the foundations of typography, I am frustrated when I see pages in my publication designed with little attention to type rules. I constantly struggle with my design editor about his font and style choices. I feel fortunate to have the training that my co-workers lack.
While I stress that typographic skills are essential to publishing a successful product, I am equally convinced that graphic designers need serious training in copy editing and writing skills. When working among undergraduate students here at SCAD, I constantly see great designs ruined by poorly constructed copy and grammatical errors. Just as the author stated, the distinction between writers, copy editors, designers and production artists is becoming less and less obvious as technology advances. Employers expect graphic designers to have strong design portfolios as well as a handle on the English language. The latter being ignored at so many art schools including SCAD. Can students really understand type without fundamental writing and editing skills?
Whether we like it or not, designers are becoming editors and editors are becoming designers. With today's poor job market and technological environment, recent graduates must market themselves as individuals trained specifically in graphic design but also as proficient writers, trendsetters and informed readers who understand the culture and society that is their audience.

As a student I notice problems with type all of the time. You can open almost any magazine and find ads or articles with major typesetting errors. This is because there are many designers out there that pay little or no attention to the fact that type plays a major role in their designs. This stems from the fact that most designers used to have a typesetter who would correct all of the problems for them. A type guru if you will. The invention of electronic technology has had incredible affects on the quality and quantity of materials today's presses can churn out. The personal computer, with its powerful word processor applications has made things so much easier. Some folks attempt to try and do a professional typeset on their home computer, with predictable results: font errors, layout style conflicts, widow and orphan lines, uneven leading, mixed kerning, mixed spacing between lines, mixed justification and a host of other problems. And although big software companies like Quark and Adobe have done much to make their page layout software user friendly, it still takes years to develop the artistic and technical ability to not only do a book layout, but to make that book layout reproducible on the thousands of different printing press operations in the world. Each printer requires the use of different settings. Without highly refined layout technology expertise, today's print on demand operations crash at print time. Without the understanding of the printer's requirements, the layman, who often wrote the book is pretty much at a loss for getting a good looking print job to go with their manuscript. What cost them hundreds or thousands of hours of work and study to write, is often made cheap and unmarketable by the lack of a professionally performed, visually balanced and technically consistent typeset. A 350 page book can take a year and a half to typeset, given the complexities of the printing and layout requirements. In such cases there is no doubt about it, such books must be typeset by a layout professional. It will either happen before the printer makes the plates, or after they are already made and must be discarded at a huge cost. Even simple typesetting projects can go awry for the newly initiated. New software will often provide unexpected results. Fixing a poorly done typeset will always cost more than paying the printer or a typesetter to fix it after the fact.  At some bureaus, a good portion of the typesetting is dedicated to major repair services for commercial printers and publishers whose clients have done it themselves. It adds significantly to the cost in both time and money of the project. You need to either learn the in and outs of type yourself, or push to have a type director work within your company. The ideal candidate would be a person where type is their specialty and their main function at work. Most printers today expect that for the most part, your piece will come, with the typesetting done and in such a manner that their high tech setup can use with as little press adjustment as possible. Today when a manuscript shows up at a commercial printer, it is either rejected outright, or sent to commercial typesetting prepress operations, where the customer is charged for getting the manuscript into printable format. In conclusion, typesetting is a very integeral part to your design. If it isn't done correctly, the entire piece could fall apart in the letters.