by David Jury
416 pages, hardcover, $50
Published by Bodleian Library Publishing
bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The history of type design is not a straight timeline. As David Jury lays out in this superb book, type history is filled with enough players, disagreements, competing domains and profoundly consequential marketing changes to make a compelling read. “The appearance of a letterform printed on the surface of a sheet of paper is the conclusion of an often long and convoluted process,” Jury writes, “with tensions between art, craft, technology and commerce rarely allowed to be far from the designer’s mind.” In the 20th century, the printing industry went through seismic changes and not just from the upheavals in manufacturing and technology; it also “lost the ability to control the appearance of what it printed with the subsequent loss of cultural influence,” as Jury says. By 2000, anyone with a computer or even a tablet could buy, make or sell typefaces.

Jury has chosen 37 type designers whose careers help illustrate the four phases of type production and the evolution of their methods and roles in the marketplace: cold metal, hot metal, phototypesetting and, finally, digitized typefaces. The book profiles many of the stars of type design—Frutiger, Gill, Goudy, Rogers and Tschichold—and includes an abundance of tantalizing illustrations. Two of the designers featured have had careers that span all four periods from cold metal to digital: Hermann Zapf and Matthew Carter. It’s impossible to summarize this amazingly detailed and captivating book. Jury is an excellent writer who will keep you intrigued, whether you’re a seasoned type nerd or a curious novice. —Angelynn Grant ca