A Book about Fonts
Simon Garfield
Sinossi
What’s your type? Suddenly everyone’s obsessed with fonts. Whether you’re enraged by Ikea’s Verdanagate, want to know what the Beach Boys have in common with easy Jet or why it’s okay to like Comic Sans, Just My Type will have the answer. Learn why using upper case got a New Zealand health worker sacked. Refer to Prince in the Tafkap years as a Dingbat (that works on many levels). Spot where movies get their time periods wrong and don’t be duped by fake posters on eBay. Simon Garfield meets the people behind the typefaces and along the way learns why some fonts – like men – are from Mars and some are from Venus. From type on the high street and album covers, to the print in our homes and offices, Garfield is the font of all types of knowledge.
contents
Foreword Chip Kidd xii
Introduction: Love Letters 1
Periodic Table of Typefaces 6-7
1 We don't serve your type 9
2 Capital Offence 22
Gill Sans 41
3 Legibility vs Readability 45
Albertus 62
4 Can a font make me popular? 65
Futura v Verdana 73
5 The Hands of Unlettered Men 77
Doves 84
6 The Ampersand's Final Twist 89
7 Baskerville is Dead (Long Live Baskerville) 97
Mrs Eaves & Mr Eaves 106
8 Tunnel Visions 109
9 What is it about the Swiss? 124
Frutiger 139
10 Road Akzidenz 143
11 DIY 158
12 What the Font? 172
13 Can a font be German, or Jewish? 180
Futura 193
14 American Scottish 196
Moderns, Egyptians and Fat Faces 204
15 Gotham is Go 208
16 Pirates and Clones 220
Optima 233
17 The Clamour from the Past 235
Sabon 251
18 Breaking the Rules 254
The Interrobang 268
19 The Serif of Liverpool 270
Vendôme 284
20 Fox, Gloves 286
21 The Worst Fonts in the World 296
22 Just My Type 313
Bibliography 333
Online 337
Acknowledgements 339
Font and image credits 343
Index 345
