Just my type

What Hacker News says

1. beardywMar 2022
   In many ways the familiarity and apparent simplicity of English text is a big challenge, particularly whole pages of text. A great book to read is Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield. Turns out I live not too far from the resting place of the only matrices of Doves type, at the bottom of the Thames.

   My brother talks about setting whole pages by hand, and finding a word missing! Apparently it pays to leave a bit of extra space.

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2. f_allweinSep 2016
   What a nice story... Here's a good book if you want to learn more about the world of type setting: Just my Type by Simon Garfield.

   http://www.simongarfield.com/pages/books/just_my_type.htm

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3. e15ctr0nSep 2015
   Frutiger's personality and work are sensitively depicted in two documentaries that are worth watching: "Adrian Frutiger - Typographer" (1999) [0] and "The Man of Black and White: Adrian Frutiger" (2005) [1].

   "Just My Type", Simon Garfield's wildly popular book on typefaces, has a chapter titled "What is it about the Swiss?" which has a whole section dedicated to Frutiger. [2]

   Frutiger's design philosophy is beautifully reflected in this quote: "If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch, it has to be the wrong shape. The spoon and the letter are tools; one to take food from the bowl, the other to take information off the page... When it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful."

   Edit: Frutiger did a very detailed interview during the 1998 ATypI conference that was published in the graphic design journal, Eye, in 1999 [3]. Long read, but worth it to understand the man and his work.

   Linotype has published an excellent obituary [4].

   "Adrian Frutiger Typefaces: The Complete Works" is available on amazon.com [5] and amazon.co.uk [6]. A sneak peak is on ISSUU [7].

   [0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426872/

   [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0934510/

   [2] http://www.betterworldbooks.com/just-my-type-id-1592407463.a...

   [3] http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-adria...

   [4] http://www.linotype.com/720-34866/adrianfrutigerremembered.h...

   [5] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3038215260/

   [6] http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/3038215260/

   [7] http://issuu.com/birkhauser.ch/docs/adrian-frutiger-typeface...

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4. evolve2kJul 2015
   If you enjoyed reading about the quirky history of different typefaces, like this one, I can reccomend the book 'Just My Type' by Simon Garfield. Each chapter introduces a bit quirky of history of a type face designer along with details of the type they cremated and what it's good for.

   http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1592407463

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5. seviloJun 2014
   I've been reading this one lately, it's not so much practical typography, but rather the history and backstories of types. I find it quite a fun read, and it can inspire your interests and appreciation for types, if you don't already know much about typography.

   http://www.amazon.com/Just-My-Type-About-Fonts/dp/1592407463

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6. e15ctr0nMar 2014
   I wonder if you've read the book "Just My Type" by Simon Garfield. http://www.simongarfield.com/pages/books/just_my_type.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_My_Type It's a gem of a book about typography.

   In Chapter 9 "What is it about the Swiss?" Garfield writes about Helvetica "On an emotional plane, it serves several functions. It has geographical baggage, its Swiss heritage laying a backdrop of impartiality, neutrality and freshness (it helps at this point if you think of Switzerland as a place of Alps/cow bells/spring flowers rather than Zurich and its erstwhile heroin problem)." There is a longer extract from the book here: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665881/how-helvetica-conquered-...

   A broader article on Swiss graphic design: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/17/lessons-from-swis...

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