---
product_id: 1705398
title: "Just My Type: A Book About Fonts"
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---

# Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

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## Description

A delightfully inquisitive tour that explores the rich history and the subtle powers of fonts. 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 fonts come from and why do we need so many? Who is behind the businesslike subtlety of Times New Roman, the cool detachment of Arial, or the maddening lightness of Comic Sans (and the movement to ban it)? Simon Garfield embarks on a mission to answer these questions and more, and reveal what may be the very best and worst fonts in the world. 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, Garfield unravels our age old obsession with the way our words look. Just My Type investigates 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 what makes a font look presidential, male or female, American, British, German, or Jewish. From the typeface of Beatlemania to the graphic vision of the Obama campaign, fonts can signal a musical revolution or the rise of an American president. This book is a must-read for the design conscious that will forever change the way you look at the printed word.

Review: Just my type of book - 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.
Review: Display Fonts, Invisible Fonts, and Font Wars - 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.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #280,529 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #72 in Typography (Books) #137 in Calligraphy Guides #834 in Pop Culture Art |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 814 Reviews |

## Images

![Just My Type: A Book About Fonts - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61k67nhEfkL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Just my type of book
*by K***I on April 26, 2013*

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.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Display Fonts, Invisible Fonts, and Font Wars
*by R***Y on November 18, 2010*

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.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Who Knew?
*by M***D on June 10, 2013*

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.

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