A Book About Fonts

A book designer I know is soliciting opinions on the capital Q of various fonts. She says that this letter is seldom used so type designers often use it to showcase the font's philosophy.

I chose the Q pictured which comes from the Bauhaus typeface. I have to say that I find it pretty ugly. We can think of the Zen circle drawn freehand with a calligraphy brush. All that spontaneous energy poured into the creation of something not quite perfect, prehaps in black against a dramatic red background. This Q opposes this spirit. It is technology as it swings away from human experience. 

I have been thinking about typeface alot since I read Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfiled. It's really a book of stories about individual fonts. It starts with comic sans, the typeface reasonable people love to loathe, which came into being to make MS Help more human; it narrates the story of Helvetica, the Swiss typeface invented 60 years ago which has since become the corporate face of The Gap, Hoover and gave birth to, or was ripped off by, Arial; it describes the creation of Metropolitan, the font used on the Paris Metro, and many more.

Whether we have articulated it or not, we all have an opinion on font. While this books does occassionally stray into geekery, I found it interesting to see how my own opinions on a font compared to the aims guiding its creation. The book could possibly be improved by a little humour, but it is a beautiful book to read with elegant typesetting and lots of font samples. 

If you are interested in this book then please get it from your nearest independent bookseller. US residents can find a list here.

Incidentally, the Books Books Books logo is set in bold Helvetica to show the Swiss origins of the shop and as a reminder to adopt an adventurous vision.