Book Review: Just My Type

Oscar Wilde famously proclaimed, "All art is quite useless." He was wrong.

Consider font, something we use every day for reading and writing, but rarely recognize as the work of a creative mind. Every letter you are reading now was designed with a clear vision and purpose. As such, font is perhaps the most ubiquitous - and useful - art form we have. Those with a knowledge of the subject know that choosing a font is not just about appearance but about attitude and posture - the subtext that gives a particular font its appeal.

Just My Type by Simon Garfield, a seasoned British writer who has 12 titles to his name, is a layman's compendium of font knowledge and history. But this is no history book; it would be a funhouse if it weren't so urbane, approaching its subject with the utmost attention, but discussing rather than lecturing. Simon has done his homework so you don't have to.

Some readers may be put off with what they see as the dry nature of the book's subject matter; it is, after all, a 352-page book about what are in many cases minute differences between the size, spacing and shape of different letters - what makes Bembo different from Century Old Style, for example. These are things we hardly, and hardly need to, notice.

Or do we? Garfield provides several compelling examples in which font has had a discernable effect on people's lives and company's profits. For example, Vicki Walker, who in 2007 was fired from her job as an accountant in a New Zealand health agency, for sending an e-memo written in caps lock, or HADOPI, the French government agency promoting copyright protection on the Internet, that faced a publicity nightmare when they accidentally used pirated fonts for their advertisements.

Examples like these keep Just My Type appealing and not simply educational, an effect furthered by the book's structure, which includes "Font break[s]," mini-chapters examining the history of a single font: 12, in all, from Gil Sans (developed by Eric Gill in Britain in the 1920s, "sans" referring to the fact that the letters do not contain serifs, the small feet, so to speak, that connect them to the page, visible on the letters you are reading now.

Simon has achieved a rare book that is as entertaining as informative. He has made the world of fonts intriguing without sacrificing the high-art of some of the more honored - or reviled! - practitioners of font-making, who are often colorful characters with much to say about their art. There is Erik Spiekermann, one of the most prominent fontmakers in the world, whose work is used by the Berlin Transit network and the Berlin Philharmonic, among other institutions.

Of the last, Spiekermann, who coined the term "typomania," pronounces, "They fucked it up as quickly as they could" by not following the "rhythm" and "music" of the type grid he had created for them.

Or Max Miedinger, who created the Helvetica type, which Simon dubs "the world's most familiar font," who failed to reap royalties from his creation by accepting a set fee for his work.

You will recognize the ubiquitous Helvetica font, which was the subject of documentary film in 2008, from the logos of BMW, Nestle, Toyota, Kawasaki, Panasonic, Oral B, Gap, Energizer and other international brands.

But often Simon lets the fonts do the talking. Consider German gothic script, the favored font of Nazis, heavy metal bands, newspapers including The New York Times and The Daily Telegraph, "olde" English pubs and, more recently, "FTW" tattoos. German script as we know it now is one of several variations on Gutenberg's original type. It was historically a very German script, and in the 20th century was used in more than half of the books printed in Germany, according to Simon.

But the Nazi Party put the script to more strict usage, stating "German Script. It is an indispensable protective weapon for Germans abroad against menacing de-Germinization."

How's that for a PR campaign?

Perhaps there is more to font than meets the eye. Font aides or detracts from the reading process - which is why children's books are printed with large, soft font - but a font also conveys attitudes its users are often unaware of, at least if they haven't read Just My Type.

It's hard to imagine a more appealing book about font. Just My Type is entertaining journey into a universe that exists right in front of our eyes.

For the record, The Prague Post is printed in Times-Latin.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com