Designing business documents

[download printable pdf of article (796kb)]

Sample of projects

• Royal Berkshire Hospital annual reports
• Environment Agency forms

Designing business documents was not created by the Text Matters team. We've made it available because it is out of print and is, we think, an extremely useful guide for designers who don't have formal training in, particularly, typography.

Where this guide comes from

Designing business documents was published by Monotype Typography in 1992. It was adapted by Chris Burke from a previous series of booklets by Alison Black, Paul Stiff and Robert Waller covering 'design for non-designers' and packaged with a range of Monotype fonts. Overall editor was Andrew Boag, who ran special projects and educational liaison for the company.

The guide rapidly went out of print but steadily gained a reputation as an excellent concise source of good advice. A couple of years ago, Text Matters' Mark Barratt approached the authors, editors, and Monotype, and received permission to make the text freely available on the 'net. [download pdf of article (796kb)]

What happened to the authors

Monotype Corporation, one of the great names of type design and composing equipment, went bankrupt in the early 1990s and revived as a much smaller organisation focused on digital type design. During the '90s Monotype helped create the core Microsoft TrueType fonts for Windows, including Arial and Times New Roman. The company is now part of Agfa's type division, trading as Agfa Monotype.

Andrew Boag left Monotype to work as a freelance typographic designer, an activity which led to the creation of Boag Associates, now a successful information design company based in London. Andrew is a member of the Board of ATypI, of the Double Crown Club, and contributes to many other academic and educational endeavours.

Chris Burke left Monotype to take his PhD at the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading (UK), and to work on his first commercial typeface, Pragma ND, released by Neufville. From 1996 he taught at the University of Reading, where he planned and directed the MA in typeface design. His book, Paul Renner: the art of typography, was published in 1998 by Hyphen Press (London), and simultaneously by Princeton Architectural Press (New York). It has also been translated into Spanish and published by Campgrafic (Valencia). Chris now lives in Barcelona where he runs the type design business Hibernia Type.

Alison Black moved from a research background in the psychology of comprehension through a brush with typography (which led to the excellent book Typefaces for desktop publishing) to ten years as Head of Human Factors at IDEO Europe. She is now respected throughout the world as a consultant in user experience design.

Paul Stiff was a lecturer and is now Reader in Typography at the University of Reading, where he teaches design and leads postgraduate courses in information design. Paul is best known as long-time editor of Information Design Journal (until 2001) and for his contributions to design theory.

Robert Waller founded the Information Design Unit in 1988, it has grown to become probably the largest information design business in the UK. In 2001 IDU became part of Enterprise IG, the largest branding and identity consultancy in the world, and in turn part of WPP Group. Rob remains active in the design community; teaching, talking and writing.