I have been slowly digesting The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst with a spiral notebook in hand writing down quotes and noting pages that cover topics I will reference as I work. Every time I pick up the book I re-read my notes, hopefully it's sinking in.
The latest addition to my knowledge of typography are Text Figures. The basic history behind it is "when arabic numerals joined the roman alphabet, they were given both lower and uppercase forms." (p. 46) Most numbers you see are all uppercase, which is fine for data tables, but numbers that appear within a sentence are better set in lowercase. The only web font that I know of that uses text figures is Georgia. Here's an example: today is Friday August 13, 2004 and the time is 4:23 pm. The XHTML is somewhat cumbersome, but such is the nature of typography on the web.
<span class="textfigure">4:23</span> <span class="smallcaps">pm</span>
Many thanks to Cybil's mom, she got me this book for Christmas. It is the fourth update of the second edition, currently unavailable even through Amazon, except for a single used copy selling for $53, that's $23 more than the cover price!
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