This is the only book of its kind I know of in print. Mike Stevens defines and explains design principles necessary for sign layout. Especially useful are chapters covering prioritization (of copy) and the importance of negative space as a design element. If you were going to choose one book as a comprehensive guide in this field, a sign design Bible, as it were, this would be the one. Though written from the standpoint of a sign painter, a brush lettering artist, the information is no less applicable to the computerized sign industry. The principles have not changed — only the tools.
I suspect that much of what is contained in this book was available in books and sign school curricula which proliferated a century ago.
I wish that Mike Stevens were alive today to publish another edition now that sign layout is no longer done with a stick of charcoal or a Stabilo pencil.