A worthy attempt at introducing typography to a young audience using a graphic novel style supplied by eleven artists. The first thing to say is that the book originated in France so it sees the subject from a French perspective and secondly the graphic style of some of the illustrators varies wildly, the work of Singeon and Anne Simon is remarkably casual (more appropriate for an under-fives book) whereas the art and layouts from Oliver Deloye and Alexandre Clerisse are much tighter and more in keeping with the subject.
The story of type, predictably, starts with the origins of writing and slowly meanders through the creation of metal type and the development of printing which created a huge demand for different typefaces like Garamond, Times, Bocklin, Franklin Gothic, Futura, Helvetica and they all reflected the creativity of the age they were designed in. Perhaps it was a mistake to allow the artists to draw the typefaces, they end up looking quite amateurish.
I thought it odd that there is a chapter on Letraset (a type of rub-down lettering) as it was basically used by students and non-professional designers who couldn't afford proper commercial typesetting and there is very little reference to a range of sans faces that originated in mid-Europe and the US.
The back pages list some contemporary type designers, a glossary of type terms and a very short (essentially French) bibliography.
The book is quite lightweight and most likely appropriate for a school library.
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