Type: Hot Designers Make Cool Fonts [Hardcover]

Allan Haley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1998

A brilliant study on the use of typography in exhibition and display design. The book establishes the basic rules, which must be mastered before they can be broken. The major part of the book is devoted to contemporary exhibition design and features the world's leading design groups such as Pentagram, working on a range of projects from the most distinguished museums in the world to local venues.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Allan Haley is the president of Resolution, a company that specializes in corporate and publication communications. Resolution also publishes The Resolution White Papers on type, typography, and graphic communications.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 143 pages
• Publisher: Rockport Pub (December 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564963179
• ISBN-13: 978-1564963178
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 9.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,433,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unfinished, April 9, 2005

By 

Waldo McSheepington "and his bowl of turds" (San Diego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Type: Hot Designers Make Cool Fonts (Hardcover)

"Note from the Editor: Every effort was made to obtain all fonts listed in this book. Where possible, fonts were listed in the named typeface, if not, Courier was used."

In fact, Courier was used 69 times.

Considering this is a book ABOUT fonts, the fact that they couldn't obtain the typefaces is just unnacceptable.

There is a short chapter on each designer, with a list on the side of the typefaces they designed. With some of them, the typeface is spelled out in that font. Makes sense right? Well, then in other (69 to be exact) cases it is spelled out in Courier (a typewriter-like font), making it seem like that is the font they designed. But on a few, you'll see that failed to obtain almost ANY of the fonts the designer was responsible for, so on the list, it looks like that person designed 10 identical fonts that all look like Courier.

I also found several obvious typos that should never have made it to print.

BUT - information and pictures are very interesting and well done, giving insight into their work and highlighting designers that aren't recognized enough in my opinion. Still, I would say do not buy this book. Not unless it is reissued with corrections. If the fonts were there, I would give the book 5 stars. Without them... what's the point of publishing it at all?

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars includes font creation tips using Illustrator & Fontographer, April 22, 2000

By 

Richard Bigus (Kailua, HI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Type: Hot Designers Make Cool Fonts (Hardcover)

Hidden within the book's very good information on type design and the process of designing a typeface are numerous tips for the drafting of letterform in Illustrator, Fontographer, and Ikarus. For instance, Matthew Carter informs the reader of certain rules for the "placing of control points (vector points) in Postscript." Many designers discuss their different methods of inputting their drawing. Issues of font: outlines, metrics, bitmaps, hinting, scaling and other technical infor is touched upon. Though this technical stuff is not the focus of the book this sort of information is very hard to come by, hence, the book is a wonderful asset because of it.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gets inside the head of some great living type designers!, September 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Type: Hot Designers Make Cool Fonts (Hardcover)

Review from Chris MacGregor's Internet Type Foundry Index -

One question I get via E-mail more than any other is about learning how to start designing type. The problem with this question is that every type designer I know designs using a different method. Allan Haley goes to fourteen different type designers including Matthew Carter, Jonathan Hoefler, Erik Spiekerman, Carol Twombly, Tobias Frere-Jones and David Berlow to ask each one of them how they design type. This great book also includes information on how you can make cool fonts for hard cash (trust me, it is not a get rich quick craft, your hard cash may be a few coins a day at years end), Multiple Master fonts and a fantastic type timeline.

This book makes an excellent addition to Michael Harvey's Creative Lettering Today for the beginning to the master type designer.