Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

Simon Garfield's recent publication, Just my type, is, for lack of a better word - cool. Books are sold by their covers, and Just my type reveals how the typeface used on those book covers is an integral part of the artistic design of that cover, and how the font selected for the text affects the readability within. Garfield's work is no exception: the cover showcases numerous fonts and is very visually appealing, and the choice of body text, Sabon, and its inherent readability are explained in a section all its own. The pun included in the title is also brilliant, making the reader feel a bit superior for "getting it" (that the "type" in the title refers to typeface) from the first glance, although they may not consciously realize that their ideas are being manipulated by the fonts used. Just my type is about fonts, "although some whiskered English traditionalists will still insist on [using] `fount' in an elitist way" (p. 31). Garfield entertainingly transitions back and forth between funny anecdotes about the creation or use of a typeface and the history of fonts, between legal concerns for designers and the vast and never ending supply of depictions of an alphabet. Spanning from before the advent of the printing press to almost right this moment and even delving into the future, Garfield addresses why we need new typographic invention: "because the world and its contents are continually changing. We need to express ourselves in new ways" (p. 322). Just my type is just my type of book. The audience of this work will extend from typophiles to graphic design and technical communication students to your average Joe who probably has at least a splash of geek in him. Typeface is everywhere and whether the public at large realizes it or not, it is an integral part of modern existence. Throughout the course of an average day, most seeing individuals will encounter a multitude of different fonts, and these fonts will elicit, or carefully not elicit, automatic responses. Most street signs will just exist, the chosen typeface being carefully inconspicuous, while the t-shirt that says "Ciao Bella" will require a double-take because, due to its font and color choice, it was first thought to say "Coca-Cola." Garfield's first point in Just my type is this very fact, that fonts are everywhere. Using the Bible, comics, and TV show logos, Garfield does an excellent job of pulling the reader in with interesting examples from their current life. Just showing the inside cover of Just my type, which is a periodic table of typefaces, to a handful of my friends was enough to pique the interest of four out of five potential readers . Garfield has an impressive grasp of the human attention span. Just my type grabs the reader's attention with an onset of images from contemporary life, to graphic and humorous typographic images, such as El Lissitzy's famous work "Beat the whites with the red edge" with the type changed to "El Lissitzy gave me a wedgie and I loved it." Garfield then delves into the advent of desktop publishing and how Steve Jobs's history in calligraphy influenced the early fonts that Apple created that changed the printing world entirely when they were released on his first Macintosh computer (p. 3). It takes Garfield a little while to get to the "meat" of the matter of typeface history, but he does eventually - although he retains his comedic edge. Garfield unifies his audience by declaring a common enemy: Comic Sans. He is careful not to disparage the font directly, but reveals the distaste for the font that has been noted loudly by both designers and the public, even showing how the dislike has entered pop culture in joke form: "Comic Sans walks into a bar and the bartender says, `We don't serve your type'" (p. 21). Only then, when the reader is a comrade at arms, does Garfield delve into the real history of typefaces. Throughout Just my type, Garfield discusses the progression of type-technology. The arduous labor of creating metal and wooden types is portrayed, as well as IBM's Typeball which was the first easy way to change a font in personal printing; linotype and monotype are also discussed. Garfield mentions the Type Museum in London, where ancient techniques can be impressed upon modern minds and shares that there are a few true printing presses still in existence, like White's Books (p. 247). Garfield also addresses current trends and difficulties. Aside from corporate branding and patenting every individual character in a typeface, there is no way for designers to ensure credit for their work. Fonts are also often pirated, that is acquired and used without paying the proper licensing fees. And fonts are downright copied. Arial, in fact, is a considered a copy of Helvetica, although the differences between them can be seen to make the fonts as different "as pineapple is from mango" (p. 221). As the book progresses and the subject matter becomes more modern, so do the references. It is shockingly interesting to see YouTube referenced outside of colloquial conversation, as well as CollegeHumor.com. These references make Just my type feel as current as it can possibly be. New music and events are referenced, and the only significant details that are lacking, that have occurred since the publication of the book, are the deaths of both Amy Winehouse (yes, she is referenced) and Steve Jobs. The work is in no way invalidated by these omissions, it is just an interesting to note such changes when reading something so contemporary. Between each chapter detailing different significant historical aspects of type-history, are "fontbreaks." The fontbreaks are akin to slowing during a run to preserve stamina for the rest of the journey. Garfield uses humor throughout all sections of his work, but the fontbreaks bring the reader back to recent times and showcase fonts that the user is at the very least cursorily aware of, i.e., Gill Sans, Futura, Verdana, etc. Another wonderful point that also keeps the reader turning the page is the anticipation for different typefaces appearing within the text itself. Just my type is about type - so of course examples of the different typefaces would be displayed, but the reader would not necessarily expect the differing fonts to be interspersed within the text itself. Garfield references Paul Felton's The ten commandments of typography at one point, and the first commandment is "Thou shalt not apply more than three typefaces in a document" (p. 255). However, typographers are rebellious artists, and Felton's work's "flip-side", Type heresy, begins with, "Thou shalt apply as many different typefaces as thou wanteth to!" (p. 257). Garfield displays fonts as an image sometimes, simply set apart from the verse, but often the font used changes within the sentence being read. Garfield is also very careful about this technique: all type changes are done for a clear purpose. Readers not familiar with an extensive variety of typefaces may wish for even more inclusive font changes, but the careful selection of altered fonts serves to maintain the cohesiveness of the work and can also inspire the reader to research the referenced fonts him/herself. There are a few areas in which Just my type is lacking. Garfield has knowledge of all things typographic, but his reader may not. In addition to the reader potentially not being intimately familiar with a library of fonts, which can impede the value of references and general understanding, Garfield also makes assumptions of knowledge. While he is careful to explain some of the basics, such as ascenders, descenders, and x-height, he seems to assume that the reader has some knowledge of how a typeface is created and what makes them unique and works of art. The reader learns about the artist, about the inspiration and motivating factor of some fonts' creation, but not much about why these items, letters, which may seem so alike, are in fact very different. Garfield works to explain the ethos inspired by certain fonts, but not necessarily how those in the same "family" are related. While there is a general progression and line of continuity, there is also a certain disjointed haphazardness. Coming from a point of little knowledge, the reader would benefit from some items of instruction earlier in the work. The marked differences between typefaces, such as line thickness variance in a single character and the "key" letters of a typeface: g, a, s, and e, are not discussed until very late in the book (p. 293); it would benefit the reader to have this information at the start of the work in order to be able to aptly evaluate the fonts shown. Just my type feels like something of a teaser - a tool to pique interest and encourage further research for the ignorant, and a light and interesting read for those in the know. Just my type is intended for informationally entertaining purposes. It is non-fiction and chock-full of information, but it is not to be used as a textbook. There is a table of contents and an index, tools of reference materials and quite useful within this text, but the chapter titles are clever instead of informative and the index is not cross-referential. Garfield presents information over a broad scope, but he does not completely explain any items. Just my type is a great tool to establish interest in typefaces; enough information is given to whet one's appetite and Garfield references easily accessible sources of information for further perusal. Overall it is a surprisingly exciting read. The end feels a bit hurried and provides more light commentary than meaty information, talking about the best and worst fonts, etc. However, Garfield's framing of the "heaviest" information by pop-data at both the start and finish of the book may be a sign of editorial brilliance - pulling the reader in and leaving the reader with a sense of pure entertainment, while delivering valuable information all the while.

You are looking at it right now, and if it is doing its job, you don't even notice it. It might represent a creation that has taken centuries to come to its current state of perfection, or it might be something that a dedicated specialist worked on for years and brought out a decade ago. It represents artistry directed within a circumscribed realm. I am talking about the font in which these letters are presented. Thirty years ago, fonts were usually the interest of only a select few in the printing world, but now every computer is charged with fonts and everyone gets to be an amateur typographer (technically, the font is a specific set of metal parts, or digital files, that allows reproduction of letters, and a typeface is the design of letters the font allows you to reproduce, but you can see how the words would get used interchangeably). Simon Garfield is not a professional typographer; his role is bringing out fine nonfiction about, say, stamp collecting, history, or the color mauve. But he has an amateur's enthusiasm for fonts, and communicates it infectiously in _Just My Type: A Book About Fonts_ (Profile Books). This is not a collection of type designs, though there are many illustrations. In most cases it won't help you in finding out what font you happen to be looking at (but it will tell you how to do so in surprising ways). It is a book of appreciation for an art that is largely invisible, but is also essential. I would not like to read pages set in any of the fonts in one of Garfield's last chapters, "The Worst Fonts in the World." On the list is Papyrus, which caused a stir when it was used extensively in the film _Avatar_. The expensive film used a free (and overused) display font, and font fans noticed. There was also a font war (also known as a "fontroversy") when in 2009 Ikea decided to change its display font from Futura to Verdana. The change inspired passionate arguments in mere bystanders, "like the passion of sports fans," says Garfield, and the _New York Times_ joked that it was "perhaps the biggest controversy to come out of Sweden." The biggest of font wars has had a comic edge to it, and it is the starting point for Garfield's book. Comic Sans is a perfectly good font. It looks something like the letters you see in comic books, smooth, rounded, sans serif, clear. Because it caught on and was quickly overused, there has been a "ban Comic Sans" movement. Even the heads of the movement, which is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, admit that Comic Sans looks fine, say, on a candy packet; but they have also seen it on a tombstone and on a doctor's brochure about irritable bowel syndrome. If you see a font and you wonder which one it is, you can take steps to identify it. Lots of people like to do this. It is especially useful to examine the lower case g. (The other character that reveals a lot is the ampersand, which, maybe since it is not a letter or a punctuation mark, appears in exuberant eccentricity even in some calm fonts.) That g has a lot of variable points; it might have a lower hook or it might have a loop, it might have a straight line on the right, or the upper loop might have an ear that rises or droops, and this doesn't even get into whether the upper loop is a circle, a long or wide ellipse, or has uniform width. Take a look at the g letters shown here, or in your regular reading matter, and you will be amazed at how variable a selection of even only a few can be. If you have your g, you can look it up in font books, but there are so many fonts now that no book comes close to showing them all. There's an application for the iPhone which allows you to take a picture of the letter in question, upload it somewhere, and then get suggestions of possible matches. Or you can go to a type forum and ask there, because there are lots of people devoted to hunting down this sort of thing. And they take it so seriously that, as on many internet forums, they get rather snarky about disagreements. If you don't pay attention to fonts (and most of them do their work best by not calling attention to themselves), Garfield's entertaining book might get you started. There are chapters about the difficult matter of copyrighting a font, because if you design a good font it is easy to copy it, and there isn't much that can be done about font piracy. Font designers work for love, not money. There's a chapter on "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy white dog" and other phrases that show all the letters, or particular words that display a lot of the letters most important to font design. There's plenty of history starting with Gutenberg and the historical Roman types from which are descended many of the fonts we read every day. Between the chapters are "font breaks" to praise Albertus or Gill Sans and to tell about how they came to be designed, with plenty of anecdotes and other funny or sad stories. This is a delightful, amusing book about a whole world most of us take for granted.

On the face of it (ha!), a book about fonts probably doesn't seem appealing to many people. Many people would be wrong. This book is a delight. Chapter by chapter, Garfield takes us through both a history of typeface development and some of its major aesthetic trends---down with comic sans! Woven between these chapters are numerous "Font Breaks" in which Garfield discusses the style and history of some of the most well known fonts. Typeface design reminds me very much of architecture, and I feel equally excited to learn about both. Both are pervasive but often seem "invisible," sometimes purposefully so, sometimes due to a lack of imagination on the part of their creators. In fact, we learn that one of the key debates in typeface theory is whether or not fonts should function as "crystal goblets" which "carry" the content but remain totally apart and thus do not attract attention away from the wine. Others believe that HOW words appear have a direct effect on how we interpret them, even if the same exact word is written in different typefaces, and thus, tremendous care and creativity should be practiced when selecting a typeface to convey one's message. In any case, this book is extremely interesting and enlightening. As a companion or precursor, I HIGHLY recommend, perhaps more than this book, watching the documentary Helvetica; it is absolutely delightful and I learned a lot both about that omnipresent typeface but also about graphic design in general.

Disclosure: I received a free ARC eBook galley from NetGalley in return for an honest review Synopsis from NetGalley: Fonts surround us every day, on street signs and buildings, on movie posters and books, and on just about every product that we buy. But where do they come from, and why do we need so many? Who is responsible for the staid practicality of Times New Roman, the cool anonymity of Arial, or the irritating levity of Comic Sans (and the movement to ban it)? Typefaces are now 560 years old, but we barely knew their names until about twenty years ago when the pull-down font menus on our first computers made us all the gods of type. Beginning in the early days of Gutenberg and ending with the most adventurous digital fonts, Simon Garfield explores the rich history and subtle powers of type. He goes on to investigate a range of modern mysteries, including how Helvetica took over the world, what inspires the seemingly ubiquitous use of Trajan on bad movie posters, and exactly why the all-type cover of Men Are from Mars, Women Are From Venus was so effective. It also examines why the "T" in the Beatles logo is longer than the other letters and how Gotham helped Barack Obama into the White House. A must-have book for the design conscious, Just My Type's cheeky irreverence will also charm everyone who loved Eats, Shoots & Leaves and Schott's Original Miscellany. My Thoughts: I find fonts fascinating; I love to use unusual fonts in personal correspondence (although I prefer Times New Roman for other uses), and I love to learn about fonts and typesetting, which leads me to read the little bit at the end of many books that tells about the font being used in it. Therefore, I was very interested in reading Just My Type. However, I quickly found that the e-ARC was a mess and completely unreadable. I had wanted the book anyway, so I bought it and read the physical copy. Lesson one learned: don't try to read graphics-intensive books on an e-reader. It just won't work... One thing I would have loved to have seen was a section that showed the various fonts side-by-side - sure, there were words and letters in the different fonts here and there - even entire chapters written in a different font while its history was told - but not a section dedicated to showing as many of the fonts as possible side-by-side. I would have really enjoyed that - but several books where people can take a look at fonts are mentioned, so I'll be checking that out. Garfield makes a discussion of fonts and typography amusing, filled with anecdotes and quirkiness. I especially got a kick out of Chapter 18: Breaking the Rules - mostly because the use of multiple fonts within a single page (sometimes as often as every paragraph) is something I have often done while writing letters to friends. It's unfortunate that it is so difficult to use fonts effectively within the on-line world in some ways - in other ways, it's probably for the best. For those who are interested in typography, fonts or the history of writing, this is a must-read.

I recently took a printmaking class with emphasis on letterpress and text, so I wanted to get some background on the cultural heritage of type and print media so I could better map out what pitfalls lay before me in terms of choosing a particular typeface. This is a fascinating read about a topic that is entirely pervasive yet so often unnoticed in our culture. That the shapes of our letters convey as much meaning as the content is something that we take for granted- this book was certainly enlightening. Perhaps, this is not the subject matter for absolutely any reader- and interest or curiosity in the subject matter at hand will definitely be useful, but it does not require one to be a die-hard about type in order to appreciate it. Though the author freely admits his hard-core enthusiasm for type, he does not present information in a way that discourages someone new to the subject from jumping right in. He has definite personal tastes- ones that you may disagree or concur with at your leisure without losing too much stake in the overall book. Your feelings on Comic Sans or Papyrus are left to you without an overbearing sense of judgement- though it is interesting to learn why they hold such notoriety in contemporary society. Overall a nice mix of history and contemporary views, blended with humor and a clear love for the topic. Not structured to be the kind of book that keeps me riveted for its entirety, but rather one that I can pick up at any point and feel enjoyment. A good casual read that I feel leaves you for the better at its end.

I was really excited to read this book - pre-ordered it and all. I am enjoying it overall, but just can't get over the errors in this American edition. Didn't anybody proofread it? The author mixes up infers and implies, misquotes the first line of the sleeve of Pet Sounds (when it's right there printed on the page) and has other scattered errors as well. I like learning about fonts and typefaces and enjoy the Fontbreaks scattered between chapters, but this isn't the gospel that early reviews made it out to be. My scale: 5 stars = Buy your own copy 4 stars = Good read, borrow from a friend 3 stars = Buy it for the airplane 2 stars = Leave it on the airplane 1 star = Stuck on the tarmac

An excellent book for us typographic geeks. I enjoyed it and sent a copy to my long-time fellow graphic design enthusiast in the UK.

Most of us became aware of fonts first through using the computer. Open up any word processing program, and you have dozens of options available for self-expression. Before personal computing, Microsoft Windows, and Apple computers, most of us had little clue about the world of fonts. We knew text presents itself differently in, say, movies, newspapers, and magazines. Recently, ubiquitous computing – and especially the Internet – have made different type faces a pervasive part of everyday life. It’s almost as if their commonality has reduced some of their novelty. Through this book, author Simon Garfield seeks to renew the wonder about fonts. He describes engaging stories in typography’s history that accentuate each font’s personality. Although I listened to this audiobook, it still communicated well even aurally. Because I was familiar with a lot of type faces already, I didn’t need visuals to construct the book’s meaning. I suspect someone unfamiliar with different fonts might have more trouble, though. Garfield brings the typographer’s profession to life, all the way back to Gutenberg’s printing press. He talks about the personalities of type makers, the obscure uses of many fonts, and their dissemination into popular culture. I’ve read a few books about fonts before, but this one is certainly the most comprehensive. The stories entertained me while my mind fixated on the diversity of fonts around me. Since I work in software, fonts play a major role in my life. When I write, I often switch from Times New Roman to Georgia straightaway to please my eyes more. Anyone who does a lot of work on the computer – which is a lot of us these days – can benefit from educating themselves about fonts. This book is one of the most fun ways to do that and just makes readers feel smarter and more in control of communication.

A wonderful overview of a selection of different fonts. This book is highly recommended to the new typographer who wants to get a general idea of type's history and progression. There is some religious material in the book (based on the religion of Evolutionary Humanism), but fortunately it's not overflowing with it. As a general approach to font history and essence, this is a great book.

Las palabras están en todos lados. No se puede vivir sin ellas, al ser una extensión natural del lenguaje. Pero, ¿cuántas veces se detiene uno a pensar en el tipo de letra que vemos en las palabras? Para el ojo inexperto, como dice el libro, todas las letras se parecen. Pero hay una gran historia detrás de cada letra, que se remonta hasta la invención de la imprenta. El autor nos lleva en un viaje que si bien probablemente no es para todos, aquél que guste de la historia, el arte o el diseño seguramente apreciará bastante.

As described

Though it was listed as a used book, it arrived in excellent condition. I would not have been able to make out the difference even if was sold as a new book. The book, in itself, is the best work on typography I have read. The author's style of writing is easy going while keeping the reader interested at the same time.

As a graphic artist who completed an apprenticeship during pre-Mac days and retired around the time the MacBook Air was launched I loved it. I found it full of memories and trade in-jokes as I was taken back to the days when paste-up had nothing to do with decorating and enlarging a title or reducing the company logo a little involved an entire darkroom full of equipment, as well as understanding which dpi halftone screen will work best and how to adjust the OHP Camera exposure to compensate (followed later by a certain amount of Cow-Gum). Anyway, back to reality... today’s Graphic Designers – whatever was wrong with plain old graphic artist (without needing capital letters no matter where the words fell in a sentence) as a job title I’ll never know – will still enjoy the book, although some of the nuances of old may be lost on them. I find it hard to imagine anyone without some professional involvement with typography would find it quite such a good read as I did, but if one has a serious interest in books and writing in general, or just wanting to read from curiosity, I think it will be just as easily accessible and if should be interesting to varying degrees. The way the writer brings this rather humourous observation of historical views on type up to date is beautifully articulated and full of insightful descriptions and ideas on typefaces and their usage is really worth reading. In case anyone is interested, I read this book from the point of view of one lucky enough to have seen a massive technological change in graphic art. I have added below a few of my own memories of working with type in the hope it may encourage more people to read this absolute delight of a book. Please just ignore the ramblings of an old git if you think I’ve gone too far… I remembered many, many painful repetitions of Palace Script Letraset invitations to weddings or funerals (mostly) until I at last got the spacing correct and the baseline perfect. Then after mastering that, learning to use our wonderous IBM typesetting machine was a joy – it was so amazing… it could even store the galleys onto thin plastic cards that were about the size of the time-cards with which we clocked in and out, being monitored every second of our working days. But, oh, what excitement when I was finally presented, in a small manilla box and nestling inside amongst soft tissue paper, I found the 7pt Times medium golfball head I had been asking for for so long! I needed it join the 8pt, 10pt and 11pt golfballs (each size in light, medium *and* bold versions), it stayed with me for months! I thought myself very lucky because we had the same fount range – yes, that was how I was taught to spell it at the time – in Helvetica too! Contrasting this ‘modern’ section of the art room were the sights, sounds and smells of long ago... the cabinets of seemingly ancient and mysterious bits of metal that only the oldest member of staff, past retirement age but the only one who knew what to do with it, and the terrifying, noisy, hot Linotype metal type casting machine growling in the corner as it prepared the type for the ancient Heidelberg letterpress. I feel privileged to have been part of the last tradesmen to experience such a massive change in print technology. One of very few to have been taught to use the AppleMac SE (with a 5” square, black and white screen and I think I’m right in saying it had a 128k hard drive and 500k floppy discs), by the original team of instructors from America, who had to accompany the first sales team bringing them to the midlands in 1985 as there was nobody in the UK with experience to teach us early-adopters at that time. By the way, I might not be as old as you think… I’m 51 now and my 17yr old nephew, himself recently having commenced an apprenticeship in computer engineering, thinks it’s cool to have an aunty who was one of the first to take on the Apple-Mac DTP system (as it was then known) in the UK.