Saturday 19 December 2009

Jan Tschichold- Penguin Composition Rules

I have been reading up on Jan Tschichold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Tschichold) and in particular his 'Penguin Composition Rules' which was a very short set of rules he articulated for the UK Penguin imprint in about 1947. 

I have had trouble finding them either physically or electronically. There is a set of rules for web pages derived from Tschichold's rules here (http://www.beyondstandards.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/penguin_rules_for_the_web.html) and I have a rather thinly referenced electronic text of them from here (http://ronin-group.org/misc_etext_tschichold.html). My intention is to typeset them in LaTeX using the rules themselves as a style guide, thereby showing by example the rules in action. 

2010 Update:

I checked with Penguin who still hold copyright and they have given me permission to set them for my own use but not to distribute further.