Book Review: Just My Type - A Book About Fonts

Over the past couple years, I've thrown a number of books on typography (1, 2, 3) into my reading mix, and have also been reading up on e-book formats and the like. Aside from finding it interesting, I think that we under estimate how much area for development still exist in getting type on electronic displays. It took us thousands of years to get paper right, we'd be foolish to think that electronic type is done after 30 years.

Of the books I linked above, a couple leaned pretty far on the technical side, and one leaned further to the artistic side. Just My Type recently came across my radar and it's a nice mix of the two.

The book covers a lot of history of the more famous fonts, their creators, what makes them tick, and what popularized them. There are lots of interesting bits of history and some interesting quotes from interviews with various creators of famous fonts.

If you are into typography, it's a good read. If you aren't sure, this is probably a pretty approachable book to start before you dive in further.

Only two negatives, and they are minor nits. First, I read the paperback edition, and some of the inline font changes (and man, there are a lot of them. the book must have been a pain to lay out) are difficult to closely scrutinize for detail, as they are small. Second, there is some jargon that isn't explained, and that I'd not know of had I not read the other book above (e.g. the book refers to 'rivers' running through text without explaining the term). These are minor nits though

Just My Type: A Book About Fonts