Probably the single most important aspect to becoming a good web designer is learning how typography works. Type dominates the web plays a supporting role in shaping a website’s character.
The Elements of Typographic style, written for typographers with a deep dive into the historical context of type, scale, and layout — is at its core a typographic style guide, but really so much more and contains highly valuable information for a web designer. Robert Bringhurst puts type into focus by explaining current best practices and how we’ve gotten there from a historical context. It’s not a light read and weighs in at 383 pages, however, a large section of is devoted to excerpts from specimen books and a glossary of type designers and foundries.
I found the discussion of page proportions as musical intervals to be one of the most interesting sections of the book, but there’s no shortage of ah-ha moments for the amount of knowledge that’s shared within these pages.
It’s also beautiful. I highly recommend it.