Flexible Typesetting is now yours, for free
Originally published in 2018, Flexible Typesetting has sold thousands of copies and given a new generation of designers fresh mental models to craft meaningful, multidimensional typography. It is required reading in elite design programs and has encouraged the rethinking of core curricula.
Few things in my career have been as rewarding as writing and sharing this book. I’m so excited to give it to you for free. Download the PDF.
I hope you’ll recognize the significance of this moment we share together in the living story of graphic design.
Many people think of the web as just another medium, like print or film, and glamorize each new platform or device as the next big thing when, in reality, these are mere happenings in a vast new layer of our world — a plane where human beings should enjoy greater power, individuality, and dignity.
Flexible Typesetting is my attempt to guide you in the practice of design on this new plane. From Chapter 1’s philosophical framing, to Chapter 2’s prioritization of text and reader, to the multidimensional considerations in later chapters about picking fonts, shaping text, and managing compositions, this book blends vital typographic tactics with rhetorical questions that challenge the reader to reason deeply about beauty.
Although I’m proud of having written this book, and although it continues to help me drive product work at Adobe toward accessible, readable, respectful outcomes, my goal has always been to find you and inspire you to contribute to our shared story.
It’s the first how-to book on contemporary typography that keeps its promise.
— Frank Rausch
My sincerest thanks to A Book Apart for starting and growing one of the finest brands in design education, and for inviting me to take part in the journey. Many thanks.
To my fellow ABA authors: It has been my great privilege to be in your company, it’s an honor to have first published my book in a collection alongside your fine works, and I look forward to supporting your inevitably awesome future efforts. Solidarity!
It saddens me that ABA has closed its doors, but all things end. This was a special experience that I will always appreciate. Later, I may reformat Flexible Typesetting as a web reading experience. For updates, get your copy of the book.