The Big Book of 5000 Fonts [Turtleback]

David E. Carter (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2002

The world of type has undergone massive changes in the past few years. Now, designers can find a font for a particular project, order it, pay for it, and download it in a matter of just a few minutes. The only difficult part of this process is often finding the right font. This book shows 5,000 fonts and also gives the source for the type. Now, for the first time since the Internet changed the way type is bought, one font book is the major resource for designers. Carter has chosen a huge selection of "standard fonts" (Bodoni, Cheltenham, etc.) but has also included the entire collections of some of the better small font foundries that produce cutting-edge type design (Treacyfaces, P22, Type Art Foundry, 2 Rebels, and others). Easy-to-use descriptive labels such as comic book, typewritier, handwriting, electronic, dimensional, etc. categorize the fonts. The designer who wants to make a quick search for the right font will find this system very user-friendly. While most type books bore you to tears with page after page of "The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over the Lazy Sleeping Dog" or some variation, Carter's font book takes a whole different approach. Carter has written each of the 5,000 on-line specimens, and the font book is actually entertaining to read. (Carter writes funny; his new book "Dog Owner's Manual" is published by Andrews-McNeel, the same people who publish Gary Larson's "Far Side" books. The "every designer should have this book on his/her desk" is often see, but rarely accurate. In this case, this IS the one type book that every designer should own.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Turtleback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill Publications (February 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823004899
• ISBN-13: 978-0823004898
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,386,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for browsing fonts, less so for identifying fonts., April 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Big Book of 5000 Fonts (Turtleback)

This is a book of font samples. You won't find any information on making your own fonts or installing and using them on a computer. This book won't outline font history or anatomy. It won't tell you how to design with fonts. It's simply page after page of sentences or sentence snippets, each rendered in a different typeface. Each font's name and manufacturer is listed below each sample.

The book is great if you're a would-be font designer and are looking for inspiration. It's great if you're looking for a font to add pizzazz or personality to a graphic or flyer. It's also great for the casual typeface fan who simply enjoys looking at typefaces.

I agree with the author's statement in the book's introduction that he wanted a font book that "didn't have one mind-numbing sentence repeated time after time" throughout the book. While pangrams such as "The quick brown fox..." are standard and useful in that they (by definition) show every letter in the alphabet, it can become tedious to see the same words again and again. Having the fonts set in different sentences also adds interest to the look of the pages, and benefits those who wish to see how a font looks in a different combination of letters.

There are a few of problems with the book:
1. Fonts are listed by general category and then alphabetically by name. This makes it difficult and time-consuming to search for just one font if you don't know its name and have only a limited idea of what it looks like.

2. There just isn't enough sample text to truly get a good taste the font. The sentences and snippets probably average 8 words long and consist of a dozen different letters, which, in my opinion, is not enough to truly get a sense of the typeface.

Identifying fonts using this book will inevitably prove difficult. Each passage is unique and does not use every letter in the alphabet. So if you are relying in the distinct gap between the strokes of the letter G in a font to help you ID it, you may be out of luck if the sample text doesn't have words with G.

Ideally, font samples should display every letter twice (in capitals and lowercase forms), numbers, and punctuation characters. Granted, it's not realistic to expect that a book covering 5,000 fonts would be able to accomodate such thorough samples.

Of course, these are only problems if you're relying on the book to ID fonts for you. And in this book's defense, these weak points are common to a lot of font books.

On the whole, I found this book a welcome change from other font books that seem to think themselves pieces of art and are bent on showing me how modern and cool typography can be. If you just want a really big font book that will show you nothing but ton of samples, this is the book for you.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not for IDing Type Faces!, September 26, 2004

By 

Bill "billsrrempire" (Southern Maryland, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Big Book of 5000 Fonts (Turtleback)

This book is done in a unique fashion and I wasn't disappointed with it. If you are simply looking for type faces, it fills the bill rather nicely. If you are trying to identify a type face, it doesn't offer enough for a comparison. Unfortunately, there are few capital letters shown so one cannot tell how the type face appears when composed in all capital letters. In a few instances, the name of the font isn't the font that is shown! Yikes! In any event, it is a helpful addition to your library since many of the type faces shown in this book can be found at no other single source.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Quick Brown Fox is Done Jumping, May 11, 2003

By 

A.Trendl HungarianBookstore.com "What should ... (Glen Ellyn, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Big Book of 5000 Fonts (Turtleback)

Carter's laid out the fonts by category:
Comic book, retro, calligraphic, block letter, roughish, display, pseudo cultural, grunge, script, technological, illustrated and kids stuff, type-label-stencil, ornamental, others sans, other serif. The organization is clean.

Instead of using the boring text sample that litters the letters sampled in font catalogs, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," Carter gifts us with vignettes. The font Scotty Normal is shown with the sample, "Would I have been a PGA Champion?" This could be read as a stream-of-conscious novel if it weren't a font book. With each sample, he lists the name and which type house sells it. The sources for the fonts are listed at the end, including several listings for free fonts.

It is indispensable for a new designer, or a student of typography. For me, as someone who uses typography as a secondary part of my job, I found it a strong tool for familiarizing myself with font families. I'd say a seasoned might not find it as useful, as much of this kind of information can be found elsewhere.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com