Josef Muller-Brockmann's books are a decent primer on the basics of graphic design (including typography). They are old but the information in them is not neces

Josef Muller-Brockmann's books are a decent primer on the basics of graphic design (including typography). They are old but the information in them is not necessarily out of date, and the writing style is very helpful since he includes examples and explanations of how to apply the concepts practically. If you are going to read them I would recommend "Grid Systems in Graphic Design" and "The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems". "History of the Poster" is worth getting too. Make sure to get them as books, not PDFs. His lessons about margins and font size make a lot more sense when you are viewing them in the book laid out according to his own principles. /edit The Vignelli Canon is a nice read too. See: http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf