Designer, author, educator Timothy Samara is a world authority on type and graphic design. His 2004 Rockport book, Typography Workbook has become an essential reference text for design classrooms and industry professionals. Now, in Letter Forms: The Design of Type, Past to Future he takes readers even deeper, expertly guiding them through the aesthetics as well as the technical considerations of his subject. He begins with an overview spanning the invention of movable type to today's digital typography, and ends with a showcase of contemporary fonts. Samara's true focus in this book is conveying the essentials of type design to practitioners, and thoughtfully and thoroughly explaining and illustrating the development of form and style. He walks you through letter form anatomy, stroke formation and rhythm, tool methodologies, structure and proportion, tool methodologies, and tons more. This all makes for one excellent, timely reference work that designers can return to in designing logos, wordmarks, signage, titling accents, and all of their graphic design work.

Illustrates 110 complete alphabets in various type styles in capital letters, and includes sixteen complete lower case alphabets, and seventy sets of numbers and other symbols.

"To understand the language and development of type is to know its history. Letter Forms is a collection of essays by and about Stanley Morison, adviser to Monotype, and the greatest type historian of our time. An essay by Beatrice Warde is an illuminating introduction to the man referred to as a "typographic firmament." In his own words Morison then relates the history of classifying typographical variations and delves into the literature on the subject of letterforms. Finally, the author uncovers the significance of the discovery of a 16th century manuscript by Horfei in the Vatican Library."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A guide to the creation and adaptation of letterforms, this book draws on examples from packaging, posters, television sequences and book design from around the world. It demonstrates the principles of letterforms, the use of basic tools and the many different techniques and media available.