- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Hamish Hamilton Ltd; New edition edition (30 July 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0241132673
- ISBN-13: 978-0241132678
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15 x 3.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,586,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Tracing the forms, history and development of various typefaces since the development of printing in 1452, this analysis of letter form explores the vast territory of typefaces, their uses and their antecedents, from Garamond and Bembo, to the design of sans-serif letters and newspaper types.
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First Sentence
Frederic W. Goudy, prolific type designer though he was, came rather late to the design of a black-letter type, just about midway, in fact, in his prodigious output of approximately 123 type designs. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Frederic W. Goudy, prolific type designer though he was, came rather late to the design of a black-letter type, just about midway, in fact, in his prodigious output of approximately 123 type designs. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Although called "Anatomy of a Typeface," this book actually takes about 20 classic typefaces and analyzes each, discussing its designer, history, and aesthetics in depth. This is an outstandingly thoughtful and well-researched book by a master in the field, potentially of use both to someone with a basic understanding of the topic and to an expert.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Great history and commentary
12 Aug 2005
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Lawson has created a wonderful, readable historical account. The first 30 chapters each present one typeface ('font' for computer folk). A typeface's chapter analyzes the structural features of the sorts ('glyphs'), noting how the typeface fits into the usual bins labelled 'black letter', or 'modern', etc. That discussion tends to be spotty, though, and the successful reader already knows a few different ways for serifs to differ from each other, for line weight to vary, and lots more.
What this book does well is present specimens of different typefaces within each family, showing how the letterforms drifted through time, or how they evolved to meet specific demands of paper, ink, and press. The typefaces are arranged in a chronological order, of sorts, but one type face's era may overlap another a large margin. Within each chapter, Lawson explores the development of that typeface, from the calligraphy and earlier letterforms that preceded it up through its contemporary appearance and use. The many examples also show the relationships between members of the same evolutionary tree. A few times, though, the samples could have been bigger, e.g. for pointing out differences in bracketing of the serifs.
This is very much a history of the type designers, printers, and other people in the history of type. It also gives some history of printing and typefounding technology. That motivates discussions of typefaces that were created to solve specific problems of paper, ink, and press, as well as esthetics. Historical information about punchcutting technology and modern type creation tools also explains the changing business relationships between font designers, distributors, and users.
Knowledge of history may help the reader in speccing type appropriate to some printing task, but there's very little here that would help in setting up a page of text. It's a book for another purpose, though. It's about the typefaces that are (or should be, or should not be) important to today's typographers, and why.
//wiredweird
What this book does well is present specimens of different typefaces within each family, showing how the letterforms drifted through time, or how they evolved to meet specific demands of paper, ink, and press. The typefaces are arranged in a chronological order, of sorts, but one type face's era may overlap another a large margin. Within each chapter, Lawson explores the development of that typeface, from the calligraphy and earlier letterforms that preceded it up through its contemporary appearance and use. The many examples also show the relationships between members of the same evolutionary tree. A few times, though, the samples could have been bigger, e.g. for pointing out differences in bracketing of the serifs.
This is very much a history of the type designers, printers, and other people in the history of type. It also gives some history of printing and typefounding technology. That motivates discussions of typefaces that were created to solve specific problems of paper, ink, and press, as well as esthetics. Historical information about punchcutting technology and modern type creation tools also explains the changing business relationships between font designers, distributors, and users.
Knowledge of history may help the reader in speccing type appropriate to some printing task, but there's very little here that would help in setting up a page of text. It's a book for another purpose, though. It's about the typefaces that are (or should be, or should not be) important to today's typographers, and why.
//wiredweird
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
A collection of magazine articles
30 Jan 2006
Format:Paperback
While this is not a bad book, I don't think it deserves the five-star reviews it got above.
Each chapter is an article (or perhaps adapted from an article) originally for a magazine called Printing Impressions. As a result they stand alone better than they fit together: some stories are duplicated or unnecessarily scattered over several chapters, while others seem more compressed than they had to be (such as his discussions of sans-serif typefaces.) The type samples are good, often original, which is wonderful for history (but will be a disappointment if you wanted side-by-side comparisons.)
The discussion of the workshop process of making metal type is tantalising but not all that helpful to understanding. And while it has pretty old engravings, they aren't labled or explained to help distinguish essential parts from workshop quirks.
I'd certainly recommend reading Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style first. I've not yet read James Felici's Complete Manual of Typography but people say good things. From browsing it seems to be more specific than Bringhurst, with more focus on technology, and less on timelessness. (It's hard to tell but I doubt it has his wonderful prose.)
Each chapter is an article (or perhaps adapted from an article) originally for a magazine called Printing Impressions. As a result they stand alone better than they fit together: some stories are duplicated or unnecessarily scattered over several chapters, while others seem more compressed than they had to be (such as his discussions of sans-serif typefaces.) The type samples are good, often original, which is wonderful for history (but will be a disappointment if you wanted side-by-side comparisons.)
The discussion of the workshop process of making metal type is tantalising but not all that helpful to understanding. And while it has pretty old engravings, they aren't labled or explained to help distinguish essential parts from workshop quirks.
I'd certainly recommend reading Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style first. I've not yet read James Felici's Complete Manual of Typography but people say good things. From browsing it seems to be more specific than Bringhurst, with more focus on technology, and less on timelessness. (It's hard to tell but I doubt it has his wonderful prose.)
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Great work on history and design of typefaces
22 Aug 1997
Format:Paperback
Although called "Anatomy of a Typeface," this book actually takes about 20 classic typefaces and analyzes each, discussing its designer, history, and aesthetics in depth. This is an outstandingly thoughtful and well-researched book by a master in the field, potentially of use both to someone with a basic understanding of the topic and to an expert
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