Articles & Essays

  • The Eszett

    Mark Jamra

    Every glyph in a typeface has its history. Some, like the Euro symbol, are mere infants when compared to letters of ancient Phoenician origin. The eszett, that most German of all contemporary…

  • The Design of Rumba: Concept and Process

    Laura Meseguer

    Most typeface families are designed along an axis of weights ranging from light to bold, but what happens when a family is designed along an axis of expressiveness? Laura Meseguer’s graduation project…

  • Giambattista Bodoni: Biografia

    Alessandro Segalini

    A concise biography of one of the most prolific type makers and printers of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Here is Bodoni’s life in brief, year by year, in which his…

  • Type Rules: Basic Fine-Tuning and Tweaking

    Ilene Strizver

    This is chapter seven of Ilene Strizver’s book Type Rules! The Designer’s Guide to Professional Typography, second edition. Here, the author provides the reader with some of the basic tenets of typographic…

  • The Story of Perpetua

    Tiffany Wardle

    The story of the Perpetua typeface (and Felicity Italic) is one of ideology, politics, commerce and creativity. The thread which runs through it all is the collaboration between two passionate and headstrong…

  • The Experimental Type Designs of William Addison Dwiggins

    Tiffany Wardle

    A thorough and interesting dissertation about the lesser-known type designs from the man who brought us Electra, Metro, Caledonia and the term “graphic design.” Tiffany Wardle provides us with a brief biography…

  • The Golden Age of Hand Lettering in American Advertising

    Nick Shinn

    This article provides readers with a look at the period in early magazine advertising when hand lettering was prevalent. Influential lettering artists/type designers are considered, in particular T. M. Cleland who was…

  • Technological Shifts in Type Design and Production

    Malou Verlomme

    The straightforward title might lead some to believe that this is a technical and rather dry dissertation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Malou Verlomme’s treatment of his topic is engaging,…

  • Punch Cuts: The Modern Page, 1843

    Nick Shinn

    Through the example of Punch magazine, this article sets a frame for looking at the origins and characteristics of Victorian typography in an art historical and socio-economical context. Nick Shinn examines the…