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

Book Review: Digital Typography

This is an older book - over 20 years old. I knew going in that it would be dated, especially since it deals with tech details of getting type on screen. As such, some pieces no longer apply.

However, I wanted something that got to the fundamental principles of getting typo on screen, and in that sense the book offers some really interesting insights. There is some real gold in here that is timeless, both in terms of the history of type and why certain things are done the way they are as well as some good research cited that actually quantifies things like how reading speed or comprehension vary with, say, margin width or line leading (just to name two examples - there are many).

I also really liked the list of suggested areas for R&D - sort of an unsolved problems list from 20 years ago, many of which still apply.


Digital Typography: An Introduction to Type and Composition for Computer System Design

Game Journalism in the Age of Digital Books

Last year I authored a number of posts (like this one) on the future of ebooks, and also did a few book reviews and comments on digital typography (like this one), as well as pointing at the excellent thinking on the subject by guys like Craig Mod and James Bridle.

Suffice it to say that digital books and digital reading is a very exciting area of development, one ripe for many years of innovation. I'm continually surprised at how many people look at the iPad - essentially the industry's second take on a digital reader after the Kindle - and are calling it done.

It took us a few thousand years to get print into decent shape. I think we should at least give this one the decade, ok folks?

Anyhow, I was encouraged to see my areas of interest overlap when seeing two different experiments in taking game journalism into the new age of digital print.

The first is The Final Hours of Portal 2, by Geoff Keighley. Keighley spent three years with behind-the-scenes access to Valve & the Portal 2 team, and delivers a fifteen thousand word ebook/application. Less a review and more a gushing fan souvenir, it's nevertheless an interesting experiment - taking the lengthy text on the game and embedding video, interactive application elements, etc, to deliver an in-depth experience any fanboy would love.

I'll post a longer review when I'm done getting through it, but regardless of any flaws, I recommend you spend the $2 to download this to get an idea of (some of) what's possible.

The second example I came across is the Kill Screen Review of Infinity Blade. Great use of interactive typography to actually convey a key element of the game - in the text layout itself, not just in the text.

Go check out both of them, as I'm sure you'll be entertained and inspired.

Typography porn

I got pointers to a couple music videos doing some really nice kinetic typography. In the future all the examples here should be possible to do using HTML5 & related tech. (Would be a cool to see someone tack a crack at doing a Chrome Experiment at implementing the Shopvac video below in realtime).

Justice's DVNO:

Jonathan Coulton's Shopvac:

Book Review: The Fundamentals of Typography

As I've mentioned in a few recent posts, I've been spending some time thinking about e-readers, and reading up on things like typography and the ebook format. Anyhow, while the last typography book that I read was interesting, it wasn't the soup-to-nuts book on "all things typographical" I needed.

What I was looking for, as it turns out, was The Fundamentals of Typography, by Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris.

This is a very wide-ranging look at type. The authors touch on everything from the history of written communication to adaptation of type to computer screens, from the structure of character sets to the layout of pages, etc. All of this presented in a way that is accessible, and not so deep as to overwhelm. To top it off, the book is beautifully laid out.

My only critique - and it's small given how nice the rest of the book is - is that their treatment of the subject of type on computer screens is very short. I'd have liked them to go into detail on TrueType fonts and how they are rasterized, how font hinting is done, issues with anti-aliasing, etc.

Apart from this one downside, this is an excellent primer for anyone to refresh/acquire a good working knowledge of typography.

Book Review: Dot Font Talking About Fonts

Dot Font Talking About Fonts is a collection of essays culled from CreativePro.com, the website run by John D Berry, the author. The essays focus on typography, design, fonts, their creators, and a good measure of history on the subject, of which he has prolific knowledge.

I've been reading a lot about typography lately, mostly related to the subject of eBooks and eReaders. I beleive they are going to usher in a whole new era in digital typography, and thought it wise to start versing myself in some of the challenges there.

The book offers a great deal, but also disappoints on a couple fronts. Here are the pros/cons and also an interesting games-related takeaway:

Pro: As I said the author's knowledge and respect for the art of typography are top notch. So he's able to draw connections across time and continents to show how modern day type developments have roots going back hundreds of years.

Pro: I learned a ton about nuances of type design, including things like ascenders and descenders, ears, swelled strokes, and light traps, where previously I knew only what a serif was.

Pro: I learned about some of the challenges and resulting compromises made to type designs because they had to adhere to multiple technology platforms (e.g. Sabon was a font commissioned to work in hand-set type systems as well as linotype and monotype hot metal printing systems). there are some parallels to draw with multi-platform games today.

Con: As a neophyte, I might have done better with an introductory text vs this series of expert columns.

Con: The editing done in assembling the book was not top notch. For example, there are reference numbers on occasion with no references. Additionally, Some of the illustrations taken from his column, when shrunk to the size for this small book, are hard to see. Bring a magnifiying glass.

If you are interested in this subject and already somewhat well versed on it and want to go deeper, this book may be for you. Otherwise go with a more structured text.

Dot Font Talking About Fonts

One last note related to games: The author talks about a challenge they had when the industry was granting awards for font designs, when increasing numbers of submissions were just remakes of fonts that'd been culled from some 200 year old italian manuscript, etc. The design was not the submitor's and yet substantial challenge lay in adapting these to the new digital technologies. They created a new category and dubbed it 'font revival'. Anyhow, struck me as similar to some of the discussion about game remakes, sequels, etc. Food for thought.