Simon Garfield

Just My Type is not just a font book, but a book of stories. About how Helvetica and Comic Sans took over the world. About why Barack Obama opted for Gotham, while Amy Winehouse found her soul in 30s Art Deco. About the great originators of type, from Baskerville to Zapf, or people like Neville Brody who threw out the rulebook, or Margaret Calvert, who invented the motorway signs that are used from Watford Gap to Abu Dhabi. About the pivotal moment when fonts left the world of Letraset and were loaded onto computers ... and typefaces became something we realised we all have an opinion about. As the Sunday Times review put it, the book is 'a kind of Eats, Shoots and Leaves for letters, revealing the extent to which fonts are not only shaped by but also define the world in which we live.' This edition is available with both black and silver covers.

A Book About Fonts

Just My Type

Originally published: London: Profile Books, 2010.

A Book about Fonts

A wonderful book to learn about the history of the world most famous typographers and typefaces. 

Fatih Arslan

A hugely entertaining and revealing guide to the history of type that asks, What does your favorite font say about you? Fonts surround us every day, on street signs and buildings, on movie posters and books, and on just about every product we buy. But where do fonts come from, and why do we need so many? Who is responsible for the staid practicality of Times New Roman, the cool anonymity of Arial, or the irritating levity of Comic Sans (and the movement to ban it)? Typefaces are now 560 years old, but we barely knew their names until about twenty years ago when the pull-down font menus on our first computers made us all the gods of type. Beginning in the early days of Gutenberg and ending with the most adventurous digital fonts, Simon Garfield explores the rich history and subtle powers of type. He goes on to investigate a range of modern mysteries, including how Helvetica took over the world, what inspires the seeming ubiquitous use of Trajan on bad movie posters, and exactly why the all-type cover of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus was so effective. It also examines why the "T" in the Beatles logo is longer than the other letters and how Gotham helped Barack Obama into the White House. A must-have book for the design conscious, Just My Type's cheeky irreverence will also charm everyone who loved Eats, Shoots & Leaves and Schott's Original Miscellany.

Ri Liu

A North American edition of an internationally best-selling work by the award-winning author of The Cheese Monkeys documents the history of typefaces from the early days of Gutenberg to the modern applications of digital fonts, tracing the impact of font usage in business and pop culture while explaining what favorite fonts reveal about personality.

Mary Rose Luksha

I would have liked to give this book 3 1/2 stars but rated down to 3. I usually enjoy writing reviews and thinking about what I liked and didn't like about a book. But with Just My Type...I don't know, I can't explain it just to say 3 1/2 stars. 

I don't know what I expected with a book about fonts, but I wish it was more in depth. Although, to be fair I think Garfield went as in depth as one could go, so perhaps it was the subject matter rather than the actual writing (which was very good) that I wasn't enthralled with. And I love type. The book at times was a little dated, there was a section on the 2012 Olympics that isn't terribly relevant now.

But I did love the way Garfield described different fonts and ascribed emotions to them. You could tell he really loves what he wrote about.

Jeremy Cote

I thought this was a fun read. I'm not a designer, but I used to be interested in typography and I bought this book. I finally got around to reading it, and it was quite good. I thought the exploration of different areas of type was interesting, and I learned a few things. It may be a bit dated in terms of its references, but it was still a good read.

Laura Dobie

A fascinating read which has increased my knowledge and appreciation of type immensely.

Just My Type A Book About Fonts

Reviews