From the Victorian era to the start of the twenty-first century, the Mergenthaler Linotype Company dominated the typesetting and printing industries. Unlike previous books which have ended with the invention of the Linotype, Frank Romano tells the rest of the story. This book details the products, the people, and the corporate activities that kept the company ahead of its competition in hot metal, phototypesetting, and pre-press technology. Over ten corporate entities eventually formed the U.S. manufacturer, which ended its corporate life as a division of a German press maker. What began in 1886 ended finally in May 2013, when the Linotype Library division of Monotype Imaging was closed down. After 127 years, the last resting place of the history of the Linotype Company is in this book.

Just My Type is not just a font book, but a book of stories. About how Helvetica and Comic Sans took over the world. About why Barack Obama opted for Gotham, while Amy Winehouse found her soul in 30s Art Deco. About the great originators of type, from Baskerville to Zapf, or people like Neville Brody who threw out the rulebook, or Margaret Calvert, who invented the motorway signs that are used from Watford Gap to Abu Dhabi. About the pivotal moment when fonts left the world of Letraset and were loaded onto computers ... and typefaces became something we realised we all have an opinion about. As the Sunday Times review put it, the book is 'a kind of Eats, Shoots and Leaves for letters, revealing the extent to which fonts are not only shaped by but also define the world in which we live.' This edition is available with both black and silver covers.