Just My Type

A Book About Fonts

By: Simon Garfield

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

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 they come from, and why do we need so many? Who is responsible for the staid practicality of Times New Roman, the cool anonymity of Arial, or the irritating levity of Comic Sans (and the movement to ban it)?

Typefaces are now 560 years old, but we barely knew their names until about 20 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, Simon Garfield explores the rich history and subtle powers of type. He goes on to investigate a range of modern mysteries, including how Helvetica took over the world, what inspires the seeming ubiquitous use of Trajan on bad movie posters, and exactly why the all-type cover of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus was so effective. It also examines why the "T" in the Beatles logo is longer than the other letters and how Gotham helped Barack Obama into the White House.

A must-have book for the design conscious, Just My Type's cheeky irreverence will also charm everyone who loved Eats, Shoots & Leaves and Schott's Original Miscellany.

©2011 Simon Garfield (P)2011 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A lively companion to books such as Robert Bringhurst's essential Elements of Typographic Style (1992) and John Lewis's classic Typography: Design and Practice." ( Kirkus)

so fascinating

I heard about this book on the podcast Unbound. I often wonder how language came to be...so imagine my excitement to learn there's a book on the history of fonts. Gem of information but in a entertaining way, this is NOT thankfully, a dry read. Narration was superb. Anyone penning a document, or typing in chat, blog, or for sure creating a web site, advertising etc. should be scratching their head..."ummmm, what font shall I use...nope not that one, oooo maybe this one, or what about..."
MUST READ THIS BOOK

Two for One - A Reference in delightful narrative

I have no idea why I suddenly became interested in typography. Blame it on old fashioned curiosity and the infectious nature of the endless resources of the Internet.

Along with this sudden interest in Typography I had an interest in learning how to use iBooks Author, so I combined the two interests by deciding to write my own textbook about fonts - not for the purpose of publishing a textbook, but rather as a means to understand all those fonts that I have accumulated over time.

Now I already knew that there was a documentary called Helvetica and I wanted to know just how someone could find so much to document about a single font. I still haven't seen the documentary, although I plan to, but now I know that there is a great deal to learn about this entire field of typography and my curiosity to learn more led me to Audible where I simply typed the word fonts into the search bar.

Up came the title Just My Type. As usual, I listened to the sample, left the website, thought about it and again returned, listened, thought about it some more, and finally decided to get the audiobook.

I am glad I did.

Information for a lifetime

There is almost too much information to digest the first few times around. I did listen to it all the way to the end, although I fell asleep halfway through and missed a good number of chapters. It was a bit strange waking up in the morning in the middle of chapter 15, my iPod still retaining a battery only a quarter down from fully charged.

I have already discovered more resources on the Internet as a result of the pdf file mentioned at the beginning of the audiobook which can be found at this website.



Two for One - A Reference in delightful narrative

The book is full of facinating stories on all kinds of things connected to fonts. There is a mixture of detailed description of the appearance of fonts, the reaction of professionals and the rest of us to this appearance, some of this reaction reaching fever pitch.

As I began to listen to the audiobook, there were names and terms that I needed to look up. While I had already heard some of these, there were many new ones.

While you might enjoy just listening from beginning to end, I have decided that it is better to listen while you are at your computer so you can stop the audiobook every so often and do more searching on people, places, and terminology.

Once I have a better grasp of this world of fonts, perhaps I will listen again straight through, although I fear that I will forever be lost in this world of fonts. But really, that's not such a bad place to be.

I enjoyed the writing as well as the recorded audiobook. If you are curious about this world of fonts, there is a wealth of material in this selection. I'm delighted that I made the decision to add this to my library.

Surprisingly successful at conveying a visuals through a linguistic medium

The print version could have used its advantage of having a canvas to provide examples of the fonts mentioned, but since it doesn't, the audiobook is all gain. I love qualified opinions on design. Most recommended.

Interesting and entertaining book about Fonts

If you're interested in fonts and typefaces, you'll like this book. It has history, good info about how to design fonts, what features to consider, popularity of fonts, branding and advertising, and some of the personality quirks and stories of font designers.

Great, if you're at all interested in typography.

I stumbled upon the world of typography by accident and have become fascinated with the vast, arcane universe that lies behind the printed words we take for granted. Anyone who is interested in the strange history of how everyday things come into being, or the entertainingly eccentric symbology and politics of letterforms will love this collection of short chapters dealing with type creators, typefaces and their impact on everyday life.

Type Is a Living Breathing Art

I am going into graphic design and in every circle I have been in this book was highly recommended by pretty much everyone. I can totally see why this book is a staple in the design and typography domain. I think it's so interesting how people take type for granted. It really is an art form. This book not only makes it come alive but tells the story of some of their creators which is equally interesting. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for typography. I really think that I am going to look at fonts in a completely different way from here on out.