Just My Type: A Book About Fonts (original 2010; edition 2011)

One of the most accessible bits of font-geekery I've ever seen; bite-sized chapters dive into individual corners of our obsession with type, and helps put names to faces - names of designers, to typefaces, that is. One of the few modern books that is important to get on paper - someday Amazon will step up their game, and producing a Kindle edition of Just My Type that accurately captures the extensive use of obscure fonts as example and illustration would be a good indicator, but in the meantime, it's not a serious option.

Excellent book for anyone who already has even the slightest interest in typography, even if it's just "Saw Helvetica-the-movie and looking for more". Not, mind you, a *useful* book - though I made about a page of notes of things to look up online, they were things like "see if anyone's done a monospace version of the ClearView or Interstate traffic-sign fonts" and "find Font Fight and Font Conference on youtube" (cute, but entirely composed of font-name in-jokes, not so funny for beginners.) If you need a book about doing better design with typography... this isn't the book you're looking for; on the other hand, if you want to *love* type and how it got that way, you'll get a lot out of Just My Type. ( )

An engaging overview for the type-curious (probably too basic for anyone who really knows a lot about typography), with what amount to biographical sketches of different typefaces and their adventures in the world of print, as well as profiles of type designers. Book design geeks will enjoy Chip Kidd's introduction about his own relationship with typography, which includes a reproduction of a much-drawn-on school notebook cover with his favorite bands' logos. ( )

Fascinating stories behind the development of those fonts we choose with such abandon on Word! ( )

Thank heavens for British writers. Garfield slyly weaves some biting and witty zingers throughout what is a suprising fun and not dry entre into the world of type design. ( )

I never imagined there could be so much to know about fonts and even if I did, I never would have guessed it could be written about in such an engaging and interesting way. ( )