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Karl Gerstner. Kompendium für Alphabeten: eine Systematik der Schrift. Teufen: Arthur Niggli, 1972
“He [Gerstner] elaborated the idea of systematic design with the publication in 1963 of four essays collectively entitled Designing Programmes: Instead of Solutions for Problems, Programmes for Solutions (...) The book became a cult text and a decade later it spurred Emilio Ambasz of the Museum of Modern Art to commision Gerstner to design an exhibition based on its concepts. The year before Gerstner had published Kompendium für Alphabeten: Systematik der Schrift (Compendium for Literates. A System for Writing) which inventoried the myriad possibilities of playing with type. Gerstner is probably more famous for these two books than for any specific design or advertising campaign. They have taken their place alongside Hofmann's Graphic Design Manual, Müller-Brockmann's Raster Systeme (Grid Systems), and Ruder's textbook on typography as key texts of Swiss Modernism.”
Paul Shaw. "Karl Gerstner: review of 50x10 years of graphic design" [Book review]. Design Issues, vol. 22, no. 1, 2006, p. 84–86