I'd like to read your intro.
You may like "Revival of the Fittest: Digital Versions of Classic Typefaces."

Not all who wander are lost

Sorry, that last post was a mistake...

My intro was gonna be about how I was looking for books on how to choose the right font for a job (Im a beginning designer) and Ive ended up realizing that a little background info on a font helps you understand what that font could be useful for.

The reason why Im looking for a relational history is it helps me to remember and organize fonts in my head.

Thanks Mr Segalini, checked the book out in Amazon and looks pretty interesting. $84.39, though. Ouch, that hurts!

That book is expensive because it's out of print! A cheaper option might be Anatomy of a Typeface, by Alexander Lawson.

Wikipedia entry

Amazon listing

Also, if you are looking for other books on typefaces and typography, I recommend the TypoWiki section on books.

track

Try Robert Bringhurst's "The Elements of Typographic Style" (20 used & new available from $12.00 on Amazon)
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Robert-Bringhurst/dp/08...
Its beautifully designed and a book you will return to again and again.

Hey guys, thanks for the suggestions. I checked out the "Anatomy of a Tyeface" in Amazon. Looks good but quite surprised me that it dedicates almost 300 pages to serifs and about 50 to all the rest. Ill put it on my list though along with "The elements...".

Its past 12 at night here in Madrid so hasta mañana to you typophiles!

Anatomy of a typeface is a very interesting book, but obviously out of date - though Lawson (who died a couple of years ago, RIP) has indeed some interesting things to say about sans serif as well. The book unfortunately is a no-design: mainly text, no layout, few images printed in a low quality... you might hold on if you already have some knowledge in type, otherwise you'll sleep after a dozen pages.

The two best books i've ever read about history of type are unfortunately (for you) in french, but they are worth learning the language because they don't have any equivalent in english, both written by yves perrousseaux: "manuel de typographie elementaire" and especially "histoire de la typographie", a huge encyclopedia about the history of typography, large format, nicely laid out, with an unbelievable amount of historical facts and references and filled with very high quality scans of terrific documents. volume one is out since last year, volume two is due to be released in september 2009. A must have, really. If you know any serious publisher in the US or UK, please try to convince him to translate this book. You won't regret it.

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Also, regarding how to choose a font for a specific job: there is my own book, which gives a detailed history of about 60 typefaces, their creator, the social background, the connotations of each of them, some examples, and a search tool; it also includes participations by Erik Spiekermann, Alejandro Paul or Xavier Dupre, and it really has no equivalent anywhere, by now. Unfortunately, it is again in french, and won't be out before september... again, if you know a publisher :-)

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You might also consider the lecture of "the secret history of type" by simon loxley, a nice book to read if you want to know some details about the lives of great typographers (though the informations are not always interesting, and once again the layout and the printing quality sucks)... But about in-depth info on type history, as far as I know, that's about it.

dr

Lawson's book may not be the flashiest book on type ever made but it really helps in understanding the history of type and how and why it evolved, if you are really interested on that and not only on identifying type styles and names give it a second tought. On the other hand it really is a text heavy book and you have to read it on episodes. Also there is no information of modern type styles on the book.

By the way, Univers might be misplaced on that genealogy (AG->H->U). If I my memory doesn't fail both faces were released almost the same year or so. Univers was inovative on the concept and execution of a type family as a system and performed better as text face, Helvetica on the other hand was a restyling of AG and performs better as a display face.

Héctor

Héctor: "there is no information of modern type styles on the book".

> well, it depends what you call "modern", if it is contemporary of course not, for the book was published a long time ago and the author died in 2002; but there is indeed some info about sans serif types from the 20th century, and even if not a lot, it is quite interesting though.

Helvetica and Univers were indeed released the same year. The actual genealogy would be something like:

William Caslon IV egyptian > Breite Grotesk > Royal Grotesk > Accidenz / Akzidenz Grotesk > Neue Haas Grotesk / Helvetica + Univers + Folio

not to mention all the revivals, inspirations, redesigns... including Standard / Basic Commercial, Arial, FF Schulbuch, Paralucent, Monotype Grotesque, FF Bau, Preface... and countless others.

dr

I think Lawson's book is quite excellent, myself.