An outtake from a Jan V. White post, 2008

I’ve been posting about magazine guru and design consultant Jan V. White since the beginning of this blog, ever since I discovered his best known title, the Graphic Idea Notebook.

He’s a hero of mine because he has spent the majority of his life making a whole world of design techniques and ideas accessible through his many titles, all painstakingly thorough. These books were groundbreaking at the time because most were released before designers had widespread access to the internet and the world’s collective inspiration at their fingertips. Books like this were the gateway to learning about great design.

To this day, I still use his his titles like Editing By Design and Designing for Magazines when I’m working on publication-based projects like the Rock N Roll Bride Magazine from earlier this year — they’re timeless and are a great way to jog your memory when you’re trying to come up with unique, original page layouts.

The big news is that Jan V White’s books are now all available under the public domain in their entirety, completely free on his website! This is amazing because a lot of these titles are no longer readily available.

Upon the completion of the digitization of his books, Jan wrote, “This 84-year-old thanks you for your gift of remaining extant forever.” His works now have the chance to become cultural artifacts, not just design relics. And for that, I’m very grateful. A whole new generation of designer can now access his books with ease. I hope you love his content as much as I do!

You can view all of The Typofiles right here.