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leelee_draws_pictures 's review for:
Just My Type: A Book About Fonts
by Simon Garfield
This book gets... ALL THE STARS!!!!
It's well-written, full of useful images to illustrate points, and... funny. It wanders around the history of typography, including odd little technologies that came and went like the 8-track.
It takes "font breaks" -- little chapters in between others to talk about the evolutions of specific fonts, including bizarro tidbits about the designers themselves. (For example -- Gill, the crafter of Gill Sans, is known for incest and fornication with animals. There are people out there who want to ban Gill Sans for this very reason. Did you know? I did not. Bizarre shit, man. You also get a chapter about -- who else? -- the author of Comic Sans, and you find out how the font was intended. Poor little Comic Sans.)
You get to learn about the history of the printing press. You get to learn about how near-impossible it is to copyright a font. You learn about legibility studies that are used to craft road signs. You become one with the Helvetica/Arial debate. You learn about IKEA's design shift. You get to visit an ass-ton of ugly fonts.
IT IS A DELIGHT FOR TYPOGRAPHERS!
I must warn you, however, that if you're not interested in typography, this might be merely three or four stars. But still worth reading so you, like me, can go on tangents about type use at the drop of the hat. (Maybe you don't want to be like me. In which case... avoid this.)
It's well-written, full of useful images to illustrate points, and... funny. It wanders around the history of typography, including odd little technologies that came and went like the 8-track.
It takes "font breaks" -- little chapters in between others to talk about the evolutions of specific fonts, including bizarro tidbits about the designers themselves. (For example -- Gill, the crafter of Gill Sans, is known for incest and fornication with animals. There are people out there who want to ban Gill Sans for this very reason. Did you know? I did not. Bizarre shit, man. You also get a chapter about -- who else? -- the author of Comic Sans, and you find out how the font was intended. Poor little Comic Sans.)
You get to learn about the history of the printing press. You get to learn about how near-impossible it is to copyright a font. You learn about legibility studies that are used to craft road signs. You become one with the Helvetica/Arial debate. You learn about IKEA's design shift. You get to visit an ass-ton of ugly fonts.
IT IS A DELIGHT FOR TYPOGRAPHERS!
I must warn you, however, that if you're not interested in typography, this might be merely three or four stars. But still worth reading so you, like me, can go on tangents about type use at the drop of the hat. (Maybe you don't want to be like me. In which case... avoid this.)