Quotes About Typography

“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.”
― Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style

“In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles.”
― Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style

“A man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep, Frederic Goudy liked to say. If this wisdom needs updating, it is chiefly to add that a woman who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep as well .”
― Robert Bringhurst

“Embossed letters represent the topography of typography. 
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― Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title

“Figures are the most shocking things in the world. The prettiest little squiggles of black looked at in the right light and yet consider the blow they can give you upon the heart.”
― H.G. Wells, The History of Mr. Polly

“Type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters.”
― Matthew Carter

“I do not think of type as something that should be readable. It should be beautiful.”
― Ed Benguiat

“Readers usually ignore the typographic interface, gliding comfortably along literacy’s habitual groove. Sometimes, however, the interface should be allowed to fail. By making itself evident, typography can illuminate the construction and identity of a page, screen, place, or product.”
― Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type: A Primer for Designers: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students

“Typography fostered the modern idea of individuality, but it destroyed the medieval sense of community and integration”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“Designers provide ways into—and out of—the flood of words by breaking up text into pieces and offering shortcuts and alternate routes through masses of information. (...) Although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design’s most humane functions is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.”
― Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type: A Primer for Designers: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students

“A plain circular bullet is widely disdained for its banality.”
― Carolina deBartolo, Explorations in Typography: Mastering the Art of Fine Typesetting

“One of my colleagues is convinced that having a wide range of types to choose from is a complete waste of time. He swears by two typefaces: Gill (1928) and Frutiger (1975), which he uses for road signs (among other things). (...) [U]ntil 1975, the year in which Adrian Frutiger's eponymous typeface came onto the market, my colleague could only have made half of his selection. It seems to me that this proves the case for continuing to design new typefaces.”
― Gerard Unger, While You're Reading