Alphabet: "The History, Evolution, and Design of the Letters We Use Today"

by Allan Haley

Traces the development of the modern alphabet, compares a variety of typefaces, and examines the design of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks

Genres: History, Language, Reference

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 1995

Reviews

[Nilendu Misra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful little book full of interesting trivia about alphabets a how Phoenicians invented it, Greeks transformed it and Romans inscribed it into typographic conventions. Loved it.

[Riq Hoelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title misleads a bit as its real purpose is to discuss type design, but it does include a bit of history for fun and because it sometimes informs the topic a bit. If you have an interest in both the history of letters and in types, they intersect perfectly here. There's great knowledge in the taxonomy of type at the start of the book, which can be very helpful when you're trying to pick out a typeface for a purpose. Sometimes topic depth is sacrificed a little for the sake of brevity and sometimes characters of a particular typeface are mentioned, but not illustrated. The artistic arrangement of sample letters on every page looks great though.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Detail-specific for type designers. As a history of the alphabet, less enthralling. I also wish the author had not excluded some key glossary terms that I guess he assumed everyone knew ("brackets").

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Far too cursory, and lacking in concrete examples of how letters derived. Some nice pictures of different examples of each letter from various typefaces, but very introductory.