Menu

Book Reviews

  • A Selection of Type and Design Books

    A book purchase can be inspired by an impulse, a glancing judgment of the contents page or a cover design. … Read more

    Review by Doug Clouse

  • Adventures with Letters, A Memoir by Michael Harvey

    Michael Harvey

    Adventures with Letters is a new memoir by English lettering artist and type designer Michael Harvey. The hardcover book contains … Read more

    Review by Doug Clouse

  • Letterform Collected: A Typographic Compendium

    Caroline Roberts, Editor

    I kind of have a good thing for the letter “R.” It has all the parts I like to play … Read more

    Review by Alex W. White

  • Graphic Design History

    edited by Steven Heller & Georgette Ballance

    Ignorance of design history is rampant and studying it is a pain in the neck. You probably didn’t get much … Read more

    Review by Alex W. White

  • American Type Design & Designers

    David Consuegra

    Where does type come from? What inspires its design? Are type designers artists? They certainly can be: type design requires … Read more

    Review by Alex W. White

  • Typography, Referenced

    Haley, Allan; Poulin, Richard; Saltz, Ina

    Comprehensive. That’s the very first word that comes to mind with this remarkable 400-page compilation of information. But that happens … Read more

    Review by Alex W. White

  • Forms in Modernism: A Visual Set

    Virginia Smith

    The idea for this book is wonderfully simple: compare type forms with their contemporary architectural and furniture and clothing styles in order to reveal a “visual landscape of periods of design, where we can detect a common impulse toward form creation.” Smith calls these groups “visual sets.” Read more

    Review by Alex W. White

  • Thinking in Type: The Practical Philosophy of Typography

    Today’s typographic designer, working in an environment in which there is simply far too much to see and too much to hear, must act as an editor to reduce as well as clarify messages for readers. Read more

  • Alphabets to Order: The Literature of Nineteenth-Century Typefounders’ Specimens

    Alastair Johnston

    “…Typefounders, like graffiti artists, have nothing in particular to say but an overwhelming need to say it.” The book grew out of a pair of lectures Johnston, a Scotsman who teaches at UC Berkeley and edits The Ampersand for the Pacific Center for the Book Arts, gave in 1979 on the roots of concrete poetry and the origins of display typography. Read more

    Review by Alex W. White

  • Type & Typography

    Phil Baines & Andrew Haslam

    Type & Typography distinguishes itself in a market that recently seems very well-supplied in books on type. Others include David Jury’s About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography, John D. Berry’s Language Culture Type, and Robin Kinross’ Unjustified Texts: Perspectives on Typography. Read more

    Review by Alex W. White

  • Body Type 2

    Ina Saltz

    Like so many tales of true love, it started with a chance encounter; this one took place aboard a Manhattan crosstown bus on a summer day. One glimpse of the word Hello tattooed in Helvetica on a fellow passenger’s arm and Ina Saltz was a goner, hopelessly hooked on typographic tattoos. Read more