I was examining a paperback copy of the book "The No-Asshole Rule" in the airport. I was curious how you get a whole book out of a title that seems fairly self-explanatory.

The text was set in ITC Garamond, which would be bad enough on its own, but the italic used in the text was not ITC Garamond italic, but rather Adobe Garamond italic. At that point, the book lost all credibility, because despite the title, it was clear that an asshole had been allowed to handle the typography. No-Asshole Rule: flagrantly violated.

Yet that seemed harsh. Surely the designer is not an asshole. Maybe just inept? Or afflicted with bad taste? But ultimately neither of these explanations was convincing.

First, this is a book that's in an airport bookstore as a paperback. That means it's popular and the publisher has already sold a bunch of copies. There's budget to hire a decent book designer.

Second, to combine ITC Garamond and Adobe Garamond like this requires a willful act of perversity and disharmony. It would be easier to just use ITC Garamond italic. But here, the book designer expended time and labor to produce something even uglier.

So, I'm sticking with asshole.