Typography, or the science of fonts, has always been an important vehicle to communicate ideas. Printing presses used typography to achieve mass communication. In the age of Internet instantaneity, nothing has changed much as good fonts continue to be central means to convey concepts with the masses.

Unfortunately, many users still default to a few common fonts like Helvetica/Arial or Times New Roman. In this book, Santa Maria seeks to free designers – and also general users – to be more stylish by adopting different font combinations. He teaches the basics of font design, including how to break down varying mechanisms that make a font unique. Then he shares how these can be used to select font combinations in web communications.

The last chapter – on putting these in a coded web design – is a bit more dated than the rest (since this book came out in 2014). However, most of the book still describes the state of the art, with copious examples and graphics. Most helpfully, a list of resources attached in an appendix allows readers to get started quickly.

Audiences include not only web designers and developers but anyone who uses computers to communicate. In our age, who honestly doesn’t this describe? Typography is just another tool to use to stand out from the crowd. Santa Maria points the way through applications of timeless design principles adapted for the newest technologies. ( )