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A Brief History of the Dust Jacket
Read the book, Typographic Firsts Slip cover, dust cover, or dust jacket — whatever you call it, and whether you’re the type to trash or treasure them — have you ever wondered what purpose they serve and when they were invented? In Europe, the first printed books were typically sold without covers! Printers were not also […] The post A Brief History of the D
Steven Heller’s Font of the Month: Gilway Paradox
Read the book, Typographic Firsts While trawling ILT for this month’s highlighted typeface, I was struck immediately by the elastic quality and irregular kinetic form of Art Grootfontein’s 2025 Gilway Paradox. The paradox is that it is not a beautiful nor an ugly face but a somewhat awkward one that excites something deep inside, reminding me of times of […]
Steven Heller’s Font of the Month: Puffery
Read the book, Typographic Firsts Sometimes I get a hankering to see someone use a good old Blackletter, spikey Fraktur, or rounded Textura that transports me back to medieval Europe when a printer’s digital handiwork was created with ten fingers. That Blackletter was anathema to the later movements of Modern European designers and typographers, so […] The p
Font Faces: Nick Shinn
Read the book, Typographic Firsts Welcome to the debut issue of Font Faces: the people behind the type. We ask type designers from around the globe the same five core questions (plus some potential follow-up or topical questions) and thus gain some insights into their working practices, their personalities and what makes them tick. Nick […] The post Font Fac
Fonts in Focus: Evert
Read the book, Typographic Firsts Welcome to another edition of Fonts in Focus, our under-500-word reviews of great typefaces. Today, we focus on a recent release from Kostas Bartsokas of Foundry5. Evert is a large, thoroughly modern sans serif family that has been designed with a lot of thought to the details. It draws inspiration […] The post Fonts in Focu
Steven Heller’s Font of the Month: Brutal Types
Read the book, Typographic Firsts “Brutal” is such a nasty, albeit seductive, word. A quick visit to my desktop Oxford dictionary confirms that the adjective “brutal” is, etymologically speaking, derived from a corruption of the name Brutus, the Roman immortalized as Julius Caesar’s infamous assassin (tip of the hat to William Shakespeare). “Brutal” in curre
Steven Heller’s Font of the Month: Loopy
Read the book, Typographic Firsts I once taught a research/writing class called “No Google” that lasted until it dawned on me that “Google” was indeed the research tool for the 21st century. The realization came when, for an article I was writing about water balloons — yes, you read that right, water balloons — and […] The post Steven Heller’s Font of the Mo