As a graphic designer who can barely draw, I have always envied those who can incorporate hand drawing to make their designs look unique. When I saw Draw Your Own Fonts: 30 Alphabets to Scribble, Sketch and Make Your Own, by Tony Seddon, I was intrigued.
Review by Veronica Grow
Like most typo cognoscenti, Stephen Banham is fondly known for being somewhat fanatical and nerdy on the subject of type and letters.
If you are a fan of minimalism, modernism or brutalism you will find Function, Restraint, and Subversion in Typography especially intriguing. The book, by J. Namdev Hardisty, surveys contemporary examples of the styles by detailing the work of many modern design studios.
If every typography book were written like Just My Type: A Book About Fonts (Amazon: US|UK|DE), more people would care about the subject. British author and journalist Simon Garfield’s tone is so accessible, it feels like he lived through 600 years of history and just popped by to talk about it.
Explorations in Typography: Mastering the Art of Fine Typesetting by Carolina de Bartolo is a marvelous book that explains some of the most commonly used typesetting devices.
I’m not the first one to say this, and I definitely won’t be the last, but the statement is worth repeating. Thinking With Type is a book that should be in the collection of every designer, writer, editor, publisher and typographer.
