Type The Secret History of Letters

by Loxley, Simon

• ISBN13: 9781845110284
• ISBN10: 1845110285
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-12
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

"Type: The Secret History of Letters tells its story for the first time, treating typography as a hidden measure of our history. From the tempestuous debate about its beginnings in the fifteenth century, to the invention of our most contemporary lettering, Simon Loxley, with the skill of a novelist, tells of the people and events behind our letters. How did Johann Gutenberg, in late 1438, come to think of printing? Does Baskerville have anything to do with Sherlock Holmes? Why did the Nazis re-invent Blackletter? What is a Zapf?"--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Simon Loxley is a practicing typographer, designer and teacher. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Sine qua non	vi
The naked letter: the anatomy of type	viii
Introduction	1	(122)
1 The adventure and the art: the obscure origins of a revolution	7	(21)
2 Dynasty: in which William Caslon makes Britain the type centre of the world	28	(12)
3 Garamuddle: when is a sixteenth-century typeface not a sixteenth-century Typeface?	40	(3)
4 The maverick tendency: the type and strange afterlife of John Baskerville	43	(19)
Detour Meltdown: a stroll around fallen giant	55	(7)
5 'Hideous Italians': thicks, thins, and the rise of advertising type	62	(6)
6 American spring: creating the modern age	68	(11)
7 An awful beauty: the private press movement	79	(14)
8 Under fire: Frederic Goudy, type star	93	(16)
Detour Typecast: on the trail of the metal fanatics	103	(6)
9 Going Underground: Edward Johnston's letters for London	109	(14)
10 The doves and the serpent: Stanley Morison and the Wardes	123	(13)
11 Dangerous passions: radical European typography in the inter-war years	136	(21)
12 Leper messiah: Gill semi-light, Gill heavy	157	(11)
13 Europe after the rain: rebirth and twilight	168	(15)
Detour Portable serenity: the precision and the passion of the letter cutter	175	(8)
14 Two ghosts: forgotten technologies from the dustbin of history	183	(7)
15 Motorway madness: David Kindersley and the great road sign ruckus	190	(11)
16 A company man: Herb Lubalin and the International Typeface Corporation	201	(7)
17 The twenty-six soldiers: fiddling with the format	208	(8)
18 New gods: Neville Brody and the designer decade	216	(12)
19 Revolution again: liberating the letter	228	(8)
Detour Inside the micro-foundry: twenty-first-century type	233	(3)
20 Typocalypse	236	(5)
Illustration credits	241	(1)
Bibliography	242	(2)
General index	244	(3)
Typeface index	247