iquiteliketype

Just My Type — By Simon Garfield is a flippin’ fantastic companion to anyone remotely interested in type and typography. I’ve re-read this book a number of times now and I can’t get enough of it. Its mostly a historical record of type and their designers with back stories on how they came to be used and more often than not modern day uses and popularity.

Not only is this book a great resource and a knowledgeable investment into the history of type and their respective designers, its also presented in a lovely fashionable way. The slip cover is a gorgeous stock and the matte texture exemplifies the lavish faces used on title treatment of the book. The authors name is set in Gill Sans and the majority of the body text throughout the book is set in Univers. Although some variation is found throughout when the author divulges into particular typefaces and wants to show them off—justifiably.

Simon covers a great range of era’s and topics. He touches on the popularity of type and how that sets them apart from un-popular type. He looks at what makes a typeface legible and un-legible. The popularity of Ampersands and their beauty. And he hits home hard with the stories behind the creation of well known type families such as Futura, Baskerville, Mr. & Mrs. Eaves, Frutiger, Optima, Sabon, Gotham and ofcourse—Helvetica & why people have a love hate relationship with it. I personally prefer to use Akzidenz Grotesk—as the uppercase ‘R’ is much more attractive than that of Helvetica’s.

Despite Simon never writing a book on Typography or Graphic Design for that matter, he has done a pretty good first attempt. It’s not written especially well—but the content and back story makes up for that. It is indeed, very informative. The front a and back cover are inlaid with a Typographic Periodic Table which I’ve seen online before but it’s nice having as a reference whilst reading.

Simon even cheekily included a great little chapter on ‘The worst typefaces in the world’ which makes for a good laugh. I don’t own a lot of books on design, and in general for that matter. And to be honest I think books are a dying breed. But I’m happy to have this in my somewhat pathetic collection of design books. It must be good if I’ve gone back to it and re-read it a few times—right?

I’d like to review a couple of other books I own, including—’How To Be A Designer Without Losing Your Soul’ and ‘Designers Are Wankers’. Both of which were religious bibles by my side throughout my study at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts.