Just My Type (2010) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

show spoilers

Summary edit see section history

People edit see section history

• Matthew Carter: Add a description of this character.
• Morison
• Brody
• Paul Renner
• Futura
• Eric Gill
• Stempel
• De Groot
• Mccartney

Quotes edit see section history

• “Although long treated as a single character of glyph, the ampersand is actually two letters combined - the e and the t of the Latin 'et' (the word ampersand is a conflation of 'et, per se and'). It is the result of scribes working fast: its first use is usually credited to a shorthand writing method proposed by Marcus Tiro in 63 B.C”

• “There is another rare feature that places his books among the remnants of a type museum - the setting of a catchword at the bottom of the right-hand page. This is a preview of the first word on the next page, an aid intended to smooth the flow when books are read aloud. 'It's an embellishment,' Pearson says, 'but it shows care. It reaffirms the tradition of the book as a valuable and desirable object”

• “He <Sebastian Carter> illustrated his talk <the Beatrice Warde Memorial Lecture at the St. Bride Institute> with some items that were 'pretty cruddy', and suggested that these too had a place in our world. 'I would not want to live in a world of exclusively good design at the bus-ticket level,' he said”

• “The Interrobang is not a font - just a single character. Yet it is so powerful a symbol, and such a flawed and original concept, that it deserves a place alongside the most adventurous typographic innovations of the last century. It is an exclamation mark and a question mark combined, a ligature looping the curve of the interrogation with the downward force of the expletive (which compositors and printers have traditionally called a bang). When they meld, they need only one round point at their base”

• “But the Interrobang - you're kidding right ?! The Interrobang is truly the Esperanto of fonts”

• “Yet despite its current usage, the @ is not a product of the digital age, and may be almost as old as the ampersand. It had been associated with trade for many centuries, known as an *amphora* or jar, a unit of measurement. Most countries have their own term for it, often linked to food (in Hebrew it is *shtrudl*, meaning strudel, in Czech it is *zavinac* or rollmop herring) or to cute animals (*Affenschwanz* or monkey's tail in German, *snabel-a* meaning "the letter a, with a trunk," in Danish, *sobaka* or dog in Russian,), or both (*escargot* in French).”

• “The truly perfect pangram would contain all the letters of the alphabet in the right order, but the only thing that achieves that is the alphabet. There are phrases that use fewer characters, but they are not as catchy. And this is not for want of trying. Here are two of the shortest: 'Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim.' 'Sphinx of black quartz judge my vow.'”

• “For decades one word has usually sufficed: *Hamburgers* or *Hamburgerfont*. This successfully shoed off the characters of a new typeface that would most distinguish it from its competitors: the h, g and e have always expressed their own individuality”

• “These days, digitization enables us to view the copies <of the Gutenberg Bible> online without the need for a trip to the Euston Road, although to do so would be to deny oneself one of the great pleasures in life. The first book ever printed in Europe - heavy, luxurious, pungent and creaky - does not read particularly well on an iPhone.”

• “...the book typographer's job was building a window between the reader inside a room and that landscape which is the author's words. He may put up a stained glass window of marvelous beauty, but a failure as a window; that is he may use some rich superb type like text gothic that is something to be look at, not through.”

  Beatrice Warde

• “Ironically, the first full Baskerville biography published by CUP in 1907 was printed in Caslon”

• “In 1979 the New York Times reported that in many {New York Subway} stations, the signs are so confusing that one is tempted to wish they were not there at all - a wish that is, in fact, granted in numerous stations and on all too many of the subway cars themselves.”

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by The Night Circus, and followed by Reamde.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Simon Garfield (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 900

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Nothing for anyone to be offended by, but might be above the reading level of younger readers.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Reference › Encyclopedias
• Books › Entertainment › Humor

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Simon Garfield; Welcome to the website of author & journalist Simon Garfield: The author's website
• Ban Comic Sans: As referenced in Chapter 1 "We Don't Serve Your Type" with a great Jeph Jacques illustration, this website is humorously dedicated to "Putting the Sans in Comic Sans."
• Mrs. Eaves - Write Here, Right Now: The video described in "Fontbreak: Mrs Eaves & Mr Eaves"
• Beatrice Warde - The Crystal Goblet: Beatrice Warde's essay reference in Chapter 3: Legibility vs. Readability.
• The Type Museum: The website for The Type Museum a.k.a. The Type Archive - described in Chapter 17.
• The quick brown fox ...: The video referenced in Chapter 20 "Fox Gloves" showing an actual quick brown - actually slightly gray - fox, jumping over a lazy - or actually quite alert, but apparently either very calm or very well-trained - dog.
• Trajan is the Movie Font: Goodie Bag TV's video, referenced in Chapter 21, showing how "Trajan is the movie font."
• What type are you?: The personality "type" quiz described in Chapter 22.
• M A X K E R N I N G: Max Kerning,as described in Chapter 22, is an online character "obsessed with kerning, the eradication of sloppy text by the correct proportional spacing."

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history