- Publisher
- Profile Books
- Published
- 2010
- Shelf
- typography: History
- ISBN
- 9781592407460
History
Just My Type
Simon Garfield
A popular history of typefaces, the feuds, the lawsuits, and the reasons Comic Sans happened.
Why read it
Garfield writes about type as a social object rather than a craft one: who paid for a face, who stole it, what a country's road signs reveal about it. The chapters on Eric Gill and on Ikea's switch to Verdana explain why type choice gets contested better than any specimen book.
Why own it
It is the book that makes a non-designer understand what you do, which makes it the one to leave where a client might pick it up. It is also good company, which is not nothing on a shelf of manuals.
Who it is for
Anyone who wants type history without a typography degree.
Opens a search on AbeBooks, a network of independent and antiquarian sellers, which is where a good part of this shelf has to be found, because it is out of print.
Read next
Chosen because they argue with this one, not because a machine noticed they share a category.
- Thinking with TypeEllen Lupton
- The Elements of Typographic StyleRobert Bringhurst
- Logo ModernismJens Müller
Also on the·typography shelf