A forceful and easy-to-read introduction to the core concepts of page layout and typography. Everything contained within has to do with laying out letters on a page and selecting their size, shape, and weight; nothing requires you to create any graphics. The point is well-made that good documents, print ads, and web pages don't need to (and probably shouldn't) rely on snazzy graphics for visual appeal. And things that are visually appealing are easier to read and more likely to get read in the first place.

The core principles are:

Contrast - Use substantially different typefaces, fonts, sizes, and weights for visual elements on the page. Two fonts that are close but not the same (say, 12pt and 14pt of the same typeface, or even two typefaces in the same family) look like a mistake. Williams repeats "Don't be a wimp!" over and over again, suggesting that people are more likely to err toward subtlety than substantial contrast.

Repetition - Repeated visual elements draw a piece together. Besides the obvious (identical font and spacing for section headers, say), this can also be something like a small dingbat that is used as bullets or otherwise accents the text.

Alignment - The biggest mistake here is overuse of centering text. Williams recommends that you avoid centered text altogether for a while. Instead, left or right align text to create a sense of a strong line crossing the page, even though no such line may actually be drawn. Even a section of text near the top should match the alignment of another near the bottom, drawing the page together. Nothing on the page should appear that is not lined up on both axises with something else o the page.

Proximity - Group related information together, and separate unrelated information. The big mistake here is using double-enter to split apart sections. Typically you want related sections closer than that (say, half a line height) while unrelated sections are grouped much further away. For example you might have a series of heading+short sentence groups near the middle of an ad listing product benefits; these should be separated by half a line height. The hours of the establishment, however, should be many line-heights away at the bottom of the ad.

(If you need a memory mnemonic, note that these concepts form an unfortunate acronym.)

The above constitutes the first third of the book. The middle third applies examples to real scenarios, like newsletters, letterhead, web pages, advertisements, and brochures. This part is fairly repetitious as it pounds these concepts home. The final third is more interesting again, and also a bit more subtle, as it teaches the reader to understand the basics of typography.

Before reading this section, most of what I thought of as standard typefaces (i.e., what you'd find on 1001freefonts.com) are really in one category, decorative. These are fun, zany typefaces that are useful for livening up a page, but they are best used as an infrequent spice. More serviceable typeface categories include sans serif, slab serif (uniform letter thicknesses, horizontal serifs), oldstyle (thick/thin letter transitions, flared serfis), and modern (some thick/thin, horizontal serifs).

The main purpose for understanding the elements of typefaces is to avoid selection two that are two similar. That is, it seems one could apply the principle of contrast by always being careful to choose two different fonts for, say, your document headings versus the body text. But sometimes this will cause visual conflict because the fonts are too similar in structure or weight. Understanding typefaces will make it easy to avoid selecting conflicting fonts.

The book illustrates all of this with copious examples, the most useful of which have the author taking an ameteurish piece and applying successive improvements to it, explaining the changes at each step.