Book Review - "ABC's of Type - a guide to contemporary typefaces" by Allan Haley

[schwa242]

"ABC's of Type" covers twenty common typeface families, and breaks down information on each typeface into three sections including "Attributes", which explains how to easily identify the typeface, "Background", which gives a history of each typeface, and "Considerations for Use", which gives recommendations on not only when it is appropriate to use

Comments

[schwa242]

Why's that? Is it the ubiquity?

[ndrtoon]

[schwa242]

Wonder if those sell well in Iraq. Or the L.A. freeways.

[schwa242]

The worst packaging patter is Arby's, by far. They're not even trying.

Really? I don't recall any of their patter, or it standing out in any way. Perhaps because they aren't trying. And if I don't notice it, I'm happy.

I think Burger King at least attempts a bit of an "eat our shit, or don't, we don't fucking care" attitude and I appreciate that.

I hate their copy. Whether it's this stupid Sniglet shit, or pseudo-hipster slacker-speak bullshit. GRR!

Mainly because I don't eat there anymore.

I haven't in several months now, in part because this annoys me. And now I'm craving Burger King. Dammit!

As for fonts, I really like Trebuchet and Verdana. Probably makes me a hipster or something else loathsome.

I have no idea what fonts are hipsterish and what aren't, but Verdana is pretty and Trebuchet wins for the name alone ;)

[hellakitty23]

Im pretty sure the fonts that wear tight girly jeans, some type of stripey shirt, dark rimmed glasses, semi-trimmed beards and shaggy hair are hipster fonts....they may or may not be carrying a messenger bag...

Yum!

[notr]

Nice palm. I read a great deal of pleasure in your future. It's okay . . . you can say it. I love you too. When I grow up, I want to be a waterbed.

[manfire]

Century Old Style is a sentimental fave of mine as the primary typeface used by the Washington Post. In fact, I think I'll go figure out how to set a stylesheet for Firefox that always uses Century Old Style for paragraph text on washingtonpost.com.

One thing that entertains me is how I learned in school that "Gothic" type means geometric sans serif type (see all the ones on this page that have "Gothic" in their names), whereas now, people use "Gothic" to mean, well...

(However, I'm going to have to ask Kibo about this because I remember reading something indicating that the use of "Gothic" to mean "that fancy semi-legible Olde Tyme stuff" might actually date back farther than the use of it to mean geometric sans serif stuff.)

[schwa242]

(However, I'm going to have to ask Kibo about this because I remember reading something indicating that the use of "Gothic" to mean "that fancy semi-legible Olde Tyme stuff" might actually date back farther than the use of it to mean geometric sans serif stuff.)

Are you referring to blackletter typefaces like various Frakturs, which Nazi Germany kept running for the great taste of? I don't know of those being called "Gothic" in the past, though I'm sure some fetish-wear folk would refer to it as such now, because some of them enjoy Nazi-inspired clothing as well as goth music, and I forget where I was going with this.

I don't think Old English would be considered gothic though, since that foul malt beverage is more preferred by punks.