Jost Hochuli
Hyphen Press / new edition / 2008 / 64 pp / Translated from the German by Charles Whitehouse
The organising principle of Jost Hochuli’s Detail in typography, as announced in its subtitle, is broadly speaking smaller-to-bigger. The column is the largest element he deals with specifically, only tangentially addressing larger design decisions about structure, layout, illustration and production. The book is about how to make text legible and elegant at the micro-typographic level; Hochuli’s advice here is not about how to catch the reader’s eye, but how to avoid snagging it.
¶ Originally published in 1987 by Compugraphic Corporation, a revised edition was issued by Verlag Niggli AG in 2005. Hyphen Press have wound down their publishing activities, and have passed Detail in typography on to Éditions B42 whose edition came out in 2015.