Just My Type

This book is a must read for anyone who has ever wondered how a font works or fails to work and where they come from. It is packed full of history and fascinating asides causing me to wander the street newly openeyed to the signage that surrounds us. A flowing read and much more entertaining than a type book should be, this is a great choice for typeface nuts and lovers of the written word everywhere.
Ed Scotland (Tue 11th Oct 2011)

Not just for font geeks or graphic designers, Just my Type reveals the fascinating stories behind typefaces. Written with a healthy dose of sarcasm, Garfield describes how type has evolved over time, how our best-known fonts came into being and the role of typefaces in branding and advertising, before he names and shames the world's ugliest fonts. My favourite aspect of the book is all of the quirky little stories featured, and I particularly enjoyed the tale of a hoax, run by The Guardian, which imagined an entire island composed of towns, rivers, beaches, etcetera which shared their names with popular typefaces. After this feature was run in the newspaper, travel agents were apparently inundated with requests to fly to Bodoni airport! "Just my Type" is witty, interesting and really insightful, and what's more it may have just helped me conquer my fear of non-fiction.
Kate Double (Tue 11th Oct 2011)