American
Type Design and Designers
by David Consuegra
Allworth Press, New York, NY, 2004
320 pp., illus. Paper, $35.00
ISBN: 1-58115-320-1.
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens
Department of Art, University of Northern
Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614, USA
ballast@netins.net
There is the danger that one might mistakenly
think that this book is another impenetrable
manual about minute technical aspects
of typeface design. But in fact it makes
wonderful reading, largely because, as
its author explains, "It is essentially
a book about people, an account of a great
deal of work done silently by those who
did research on the mechanics of type
making, on the development of type as
an important medium for communication,
and on type as form, so important in graphic
design." Put differently, it is a
resource one might easily use in a variety
of ways, at differing levels. On the one
hand, it could be a reference for practicing
designers as an annotated type specimen
book in the sense that it features the
alphabets from more than 330 typefaces.
Yet, it doesn’t simply reproduce
those typefaces but goes on to provide
in some detail the historical context
of each of them with the result that we
can understand when and why a particular
typeface was invented, its stylistic antecedents,
and the distinctive visual attributes
that clearly or subtly distinguish it
from other examples. The book’s central
section is organized alphabetically by
the names of sixty type designers, all
of whom were U.S.-based. Each is represented
by at least one of his or her typefaces,
while a prolific 19th-century
wood type designer named William H. Page
is represented by twenty-six. Each of
these album-like sections begins with
an interesting essay on the life, beliefs,
and achievements of that particular designer.
Other features also contribute substantially
to its usefulness as a college-level textbook
on the history of typography and type
design. In particular, there is a fascinating
23-page "Chronology of Type-Related
Events," a "Comparative American/European
Type Chronology" (from 1620 through
2002), and one-page narrative histories
of nine important American type foundries.
Last but not least, the book includes
an extensive glossary, as nearly any textbook
would. The difference is that this 30-page
glossary is so thoroughly researched,
and is written with such thoughtfulness
that, in and of itself, it could easily
serve as a separate book.
(Reprinted by permission
from Ballast Quarterly Review,
Vol. 19, No. 3, Spring 2004)
