Just My Type Quotes

“These days, digitization enables us to view the copies [of the Gutenberg Bible] online without the need for a trip to the Euston Road, although to do so would be to deny oneself one of the great pleasures in life. The first book ever printed in Europe - heavy, luxurious, pungent and creaky - does not read particularly well on an iPhone.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“One thing was for sure: no one wanted a repeat of Christopher Barker’s Bible of 1631, which omitted the negative from the seventh commandment so that it read, ‘Thou shalt commit adultery.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“Ecofont is designed to save ink, money and eventually the planet, but heaven save us from worthy fonts. Ecofont is a program that adds holes to a font. The software takes Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman and prints them is if they had been attacked by moths. They retain their original shape but not their original form, and so lose their true weight and beauty... a study at the University of Wisconsin claimed that Ecofonts, such as Ecofont Vera Sans, actually uses more ink and toner than lighter fonts such as Century Gothic...”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“In 1979 the New York Times reported that in many {New York Subway} stations, the signs are so confusing that one is tempted to wish they were not there at all - a wish that is, in fact, granted in numerous stations and on all too many of the subway cars themselves.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“Type has rhythm, just like music.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“And that’s the challenge for all of us – to create warmth in a digital world.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“Ironically, the first full Baskerville biography published by CUP in 1907 was printed in Caslon”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“...the book typographer's job was building a window between the reader inside a room and that landscape which is the author's words. He may put up a stained glass window of marvelous beauty, but a failure as a window; that is he may use some rich superb type like text gothic that is something to be look at, not through.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“The truly perfect pangram would contain all the letters of the alphabet in the right order, but the only thing that achieves that is the alphabet. There are phrases that use fewer characters, but they are not as catchy. And this is not for want of trying. Here are two of the shortest: 'Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim.' 'Sphinx of black quartz judge my vow.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“Most people take the way words look for granted ... Words are there to be read – end of story. Once however typomania sets in, it becomes quite a different story.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“But now with young kids – there are so many more nerds.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“Everybody wants to design a bloody typeface.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“We’re still analogue beings. Our brains and eyes are analogue.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: The original and best book about fonts

“The mid-century Conservative Party in England had arrived at a universal font truth: we tend to treat the traditional and familiar as trustworthy. We are dubious of fonts that alert us to their difference, or fonts that seem to be trying too hard. We don't like being consciously sold things, or paying for fancy design we don't need.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“And that's the challenge for all of us - to create warmth in a digital world. Not many people can do it. You see a lot of stuff that looks great but simply doesn't turn you on. It's like making a song on a synthesizer. To make a drum machine sound good is really difficult - you might as well play real drums. We're still analogue beings. Our brains and eyes are analogue.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“The lettering is clean, beautifully proportioned, easily read, and, well, ordered.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“¿Todavía no hemos acabado? ¿Por qué necesitamos todas estas fuentes nuevas? La respuesta, entonces y ahora, es la misma: porque el mundo y lo que contiene están en perpetuo cambio. Necesitamos poder expresarnos de nuevas maneras.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“O cambiarte el nombre por Neville Brody. Si fueras él, habrías entrado a trabajar en la revista londinense The Face en 1981 y habrías transformado su diseño, asaz predecible, de manera tal que tu estilo reverberaría no solo en otras revistas sino en libros, discos y otros muchos aspectos del diseño comercial de las siguientes décadas.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

“Beatrice Warde: "La copa de cristal o por qué el arte de la impresión debe ser invisible". Su teoría, sencilla pero contundente, defendía que incluso el mejor tipo de letra existía solo con el objetivo de comunicar una idea. No había sido creado para ser visto y mucho menos para ser admirado. Cuanto más visible la fuente o la maquetación de una página, peor la tipografía. (...) Cuanto más transparente el cristal, más se apreciará su contenido.”
― Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts