TYPOGRAPHY—last year, we saw a lot of modernist fonts in page-wide settings, often with big top margins. This year smart, highly legible mixed settings dominate. They’re not like the mixed setting of the past, with single sentences set in multiple sizes and fonts. They’re mixed in two new ways. First, there isn’t a clear division between Modernist typography and what I call Classic Book typography (oldstyle fonts set justified, centered, single column). Instead, the font might be Modern and the setting classic, or vice versa. The settings are dictated by content with an eye on expression and readability [8] . Grids are way more flexible. Baselines bounce, margins shift, justified is mixed with ragged-right, and flush left is mixed with centered settings [9] .

THE TOP BOOKS OF 2005
GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL ............................................................ 172
THE PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE .........................................................153
THE DA VINCI CODE .........................................................................143
ANGELS AND DEMONS ....................................................................120
READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN ........................................................103
THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY ...................................................... 97
THE TIPPING POINT.............................................................................71
THE KITE RUNNER ..............................................................................67
YOUR BEST LIFE NOW ........................................................................61
1,000 PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE ....................................54
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA ....................................................................48
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING .........................48
BLINK ....................................................................................................46
THE WORLD IS FLAT ...........................................................................37
FREAKONOMICS ................................................................................ 36
1776 ....................................................................................................... 30
*NUMBERS ON RIGHT INDICATE NUMBER OF WEEKS THE BOOKS WERE ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST

This flexibility means that legibility is king. We see very few extreme settings, such as overspaced or underspaced type. Most text is set in comfortable, oldstyle fonts. If body text is set in Helvetica, it gets bigger so it’s easy to read. One hint for the future: One art school catalog uses ’70s-style extra-bold fonts in hyper-tight, Herb-Lubalinesque settings.

STYLE GENRES—Speaking of Modernist versus Classic Book, the same sort of thing is happening with style in general. Although Modernist dominates, the trend is to mix tropes from various genres for conceptual effect [10]. With this new approach to style, most of the genres we saw over the last decade have faded out. Retro-look work is way down. The “real object” and trompe l’oeil thing—where annual reports look like medical records, for example—is basically gone. Ultra-minimalism is out.

One style that is surviving nicely—second only to Modernism, and not by much—is the Industrial look. Industrial materials, metals, type set in little boxes to mimic the labels on blueprints, condensed sans serifs, and undesigned typography still turn us on [11] .

MATERIALS—In the same vein, the trend for authentic materials is very strong. Steel, uncolored (i.e., white) plastic, real tip-ins, little bookmark-ribbons are everywhere [12] .

COMPOSITION—There are quite a few trends here, so I’ll just give you the data: Borders on pages and photos, either black or white, 10 percent of all entries; wide top or bottom margins, 10 percent; black backgrounds (which have been out since the ’80s), 5 percent; solid color pages, 15 percent; fold-over pages, either to stiffen covers or as foldouts, 10 percent; tiny books, 15 percent [13] . Here are a few examples: Look back through the things we’ve already shown you for more.

ATTITUDE—For a long time, if the attitude wasn’t composed and professional, it was aggressive and in your face. No more. Now if it isn’t composed and professional it’s smartly witty—or lush, lush, lush. Witty ranks at 10 percent. Lush wins at about 20 percent. Extravagant color, rich imagery, lavish use of paper and ink, are back with a vengeance after years of eco- and budget-based restraint. The ultra-minimalism backlash that snapped us out of the excesses of the ’90s has been backlashed itself.

CONCEPTS
SELF PROMO—To promote themselves, a bunch of creative firms are bypassing the usual all-about-us brochure in favor of sending out value-added gifts. Mostly lovely little books with witty, inspirational content. (Look back. You’ve already seen them.)

EDGY TRICK—My favorite for the year is in the Art Institute of Boston’s catalog. Remember when Sagmeister shocked us all by printing the edges of the pages of that book with a landscape photograph? Fritz Klaetke of Visual Dialog did that idea one better by printing the edges of the catalog with a graphic that reveals a message when you flip the pages. Wake up! [14]

ART SCHOOL CATALOGS—They’re making sense. For a long time, these catalogs have been design free-for-alls. Fat with creativity and anarchy, skinny on content and messaging. Not this year. Every catalog here has smart messaging, well-defined positioning, and smart design—without losing the wild, wonderful, wacky heart young creatives crave. Basically they control the typography and let photography and student work do the emoting [15] .

10 FASTEST-GROWING WEBSITES
MYSPACE.COM (profiling and networking)
ARES.COM (free file sharing: music)
BAIDU.COM (chinese GOOGLE, just made IPO)
WIKIPEDIA.ORG (peer-to-peer encyclopedia)
ORKUT.COM (GOOGLE social network)
ITUNES.COM (ITUNES)
SKY.COM (UK news site)
WORLDOFWARCRAFT.COM (gaming)
GREENDAY.COM (popular melodic punk band)

FLEXIBLE IDENTITIES—When we started talking about brand DNA and firing the brand police, this is what we were hoping to see. Although the idea is not mainstream yet, it’s very much alive. Identities are held together with conceptual themes and consistent visual languages, not by hard and fast rules. More, please [16].