New Type Book
Folks may be interested in
Type Matters!
Jim Williams
Foreword by Ben Casey
£17.95/$29.95
from Muller Press in the UK.
Neil
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I saw this book a couple of days ago at Barnes-Noble. Very nicely done. Congrats to Jim Williams!
[thomas]
Unaccustomed as I am lately in making comments in the Briar Press discussions, in this case, I now feel compelled. Regarding the new book Type Matters! by Jim Williams, first it is written in the King’s English which I find very distracting in reading a text.
This book seems to have very little content dealing with letterpress as most type faces mentioned are digital type faces.
Second, to a letterpress printer interested in metal type, the following items are confusing and/or of little use.
Javelin Extra Bold, Jabberwub (no, I’m not kidding!), letters BT following some earlier common faces such as News Gothic, Digital Type, Anti-Podean(?), non-lining figures, usually referred to on this side of the pond as oldstyle figures.
Enuf said, as I want to be known as my usual pleasant, jovial self, without sounding as I’m complaining nor wanting to mislead people, I am
Stan Pekala
good to see you posting, keep it up.
I’ve flipped through the book using Amazon’s “look inside” feature. Here’s a passage written by Ben Casey of the University of Central Lancashire. I’m not sure if it’s an endorsement of the book or part of the preface, but it delineates the intention of the book and perhaps addresses Stan’s concerns:
Digital type has taken away all the physical constraints, and with them much of the discipline that governed typography for hundreds of years. The seemingly infinite possibilities combined with speed of execution offer a creative freedom that those of us who are a little longer in the tooth find hard to comprehend. It has also democratized typography, making it freely accessible to the masses.
At times like these comes a danger that the very foundations on which the subject was built could simply be forgotten.
There is now an even greater requirement for both the new generation of professionals and the enthusiastic dabblers to have a fundamental knowledge of the basic principles of type. Without it they will be unequipped to enter a world that may sound surprisingly cruel and violent: where widows are castigated, punctuation is hung, and, without due consideration, type can end up bleeding in the gutter.
Pay attention.
Barbara
For those interested in the future of type design you may like to check out the Lubalin Lecture Series and type design program we have at Cooper Union.
You’ll undoubtedly recognize some of the faculty.
http://coopertype.org/lectures/
Dan