‘Just My Type’ Book Review
A brief review of Simon Garfield’s latest offering, ‘Just My Type’
Never judge a book by it’s cover? Whether right or wrong, it was the cover that first compelled me to buy the book. A collection of mixed type, making up the title, set on orange and blue uncoated paper. Garfield’s latest book certainly stood out, nestled between similar looking Typography books in the Swiss Style.
As I began to read I discovered the writer’s tone was just as fresh as the cover. Before the age of the personal computer, typography was the domain only of the print industry or particularly nerdy hobbyists. The finer details of the setting type was lost on the general public. Luckily times change and now everyone has the great privilege of making typographical decisions, for good or bad.
Garfield has written the first truly accessible and entertaining typography book. It can be read without having any previous knowledge in the field. It can be read without you having any interest in the subject. Most of all it can be read just for the sake of reading.
As all good typography books should, it explains the various lexicons within the industry. Garfield does a great a job of balancing the content, by giving the reader an entertaining crash course in letter anatomy without bogging them down with the more obscure terms and practices of the craft.
I’m a type enthusiast, but must admit, I’ve found a few of the most critically acclaimed typography texts, dry reading. The author is constantly changing pace and breaking up the narrative with anecdotes, tidbits and what he calls ‘Font Breaks’. Here he takes a specific font and looks at it’s history and design in greater depth. Gill Sans, Albertus and Futura, I found especially interesting. This book is suitable for those of the ‘internet generation’ who’s attention spans are short or steadily diminishing.
As you make your way through the book you’ll have your appetite whet as Garfield introduces you to eccentric and sometimes explicit lives of Typographers. Two words—Eric Gill.
You’ll get a firm grasp of how Typography has effected us in the past and how relevant it is modern society. How the simple act of exchanging one font for another can cause controversy in the case of IKEA and how a font can help win a campaign for Presidency.
To sum up, the typography nerd will take away little from this book, other than an entertaining read. For the typographic layman this book is a great entry point to the craft and in my opinion is up there with Lupton’s ‘Thinking with Type‘.