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Book review: Just My Type by Simon Garfield

07/26/2012 1:07 PM | Steve Andrews (Administrator)
In 2009, Ikea changed its font. In order to create uniformity between its online and print catalogues, the Swedish furniture giant threw out the sleek Futura and replaced it with Verdana, a font introduced by Microsoft.

A font change is common enough. The odd thing, writes Just My Type author Simon Garfield, is that people noticed. Petitions were drafted. Verdana debates were broadcast on the BBC. One blogger wrote that it was analogous to “giving up your Christian Louboutins for a pair of Uggs.”

Since Johannes Gutenberg struck his first Bible in Textura, typefaces have largely existed unseen. They were trafficked and coveted by print shops undefined but to the layperson, they were simply a means to an end; no more noticeable than the frame propping up the Statue of Liberty or the wood panel on which da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.

Then, along came a San Francisco type fan named Steve Jobs. When the Apple co-founder launched the Macintosh computer in 1984, he took the unprecedented step of pumping the hard drive with multiple fonts (the green-on-black text of earlier computers was only available in one font). Suddenly, everyday people became “gods of type,” trafficking in a 500-year-old art form.

Just My Type is Garfield’s friendly 341-page guide to this strange new dominion of letters.

Comments

  • 07/26/2012 8:36 AM | Deleted user
    That was a great read!
    Link  •  Reply

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