The Elements of Typographic Style - Journal Chapter 1

Typography is a constant fight between drawing attention to be noticed and losing it to be read. The deal with typography is that it needs to stand the test of time. Not just a grungy type-face of the day, but one that is strong and timeless. In order to do this, the typography needs to be at least legible. This applies to all instances of set type; business cards, annual reports, magazines, billboards etc.

The typographer's job hasn't changed much over the few years. First they began just as copiers, to imitate script in order to make it easier to mass produce. Now with printing and scanning copying handwriting is just as easy. But typographers are still needed; they are musicians of type, using a variety of sounds and voices. A badly set book is like a horribly composed piece of music.

Type is a way to interpret writing and copy. In order to understand what type-treatment is needed one needs to actually read the text and understand it. With doing that you may actually do the copy justice. Also on top of what is written, be sure to draw visible relationships with other aspects of the document or piece, such as photos or quotes or tables or what ever else. I suppose its similar to working with html, each thing has a tag and should be set more or less the same way through the entire document, unless specifically changed for a good reason.

The devil's in the details.

recto(right hand)
verso(left hand)