Accompanying CD-ROM contains ... "150 of these [blackletter] fonts for free private and restricted commercial use."--Page 4 of cover.

Leading fraktur artist Ruthanne Hartung provides instruction, patterns, inspiration. Full-color throughout.

The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany presents a new interpretation of National Socialism, arguing that art in the Third Reich was not simply an instrument of the regime, but actually became a source of the racist politics upon which its ideology was founded. Through the myth of the "Aryan race," a race pronounced superior because it alone creates culture, Nazism asserted art as the sole raison d'être of a regime defined by Hitler as the "dictatorship of genius." Michaud shows the important link between the religious nature of Nazi art and the political movement, revealing that in Nazi Germany art was considered to be less a witness of history than a force capable of producing future, the actor capable of accelerating the coming of a reality immanent to art itself.

Review: "This illustrated A-Z features outstanding type designers from around the world, from Gutenberg to the present day. Arranged alphabetically by designer's name, the book contains over 260 biographical profiles. Entries are illustrated by key typefaces taken from a wide range of sources, including type specimens, original posters, private press editions and magazine covers, and also give a list of work and, where applicable, further reading references and a website address. An essential reference for typographers, graphic designers and students, the book also features a full index and eight short texts by leading typographers - Jonathan Barnbrook, Erik van Blokland, Clive Bruton, John Downer, John Hudson, Jean Francois Porchez, Erik Spiekermann and Jeremy Tankard - that cover a variety of different aspects of type design, including typeface revivals, font piracy, designing fonts for corporate identities and the role of nationality in type design."--BOOK JACKET

Blackletter type, also known as Fraktur or German Gothic, originated with Gutenberg's moveable type, and was based on the contemporary calligraphy of that time. From the sixteenth century on, it shared the spotlight with roman type in German-speaking countries and was even adopted for the printing of Martin Luther's writings. Yet by the twentieth century it was increasingly spurned by both commercial artists, who embraced roman type for its classical associations, and modernist designers, who championed sanserif type for its universal and democratic qualities. At the close of the Second World War, the identification of blackletter with failed Nazi ideology was inescapable, thus effectively ending the four-hundred-year tradition of blackletter as a distinctive national script. The essays in "Blackletter" investigate the rise and fall of blackletter type, examining its uses and cultural significance at various points throughout history, including the Reformation, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, and the post-Berlin Wall period. This title, illustrated with numerous color examples of blackletter typefaces and their implementation, is a necessity for anyone interested in the history of type.

"Probably the most important work on typography and graphic design in the twentieth century."--Carl Zahn, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

One hundred typographic pages are exhibited in this book, consisting of alphabets and quotations printed in various type styles. The quotations selected by the author concern types and printing, are from the past and the present, and are in 16 languages (translations are provided). Hermann Zapf is a noted type designer and he himself originally devised many of the type faces used here. Other faces were taken from the fonts of the Stempel foundry in Frankfurt/Main and historic faces came from that foundry's archives. The author has also designed the page layouts, choosing for this manual a horizontal format. The purpose of the manual is "to show the myriad possibilities of the expressiveness and beauty of type, whether individually or in massed text, by the use of purely typographic means." The original English edition of this work was limited to 1000 copies. In making it available to a larger audience, Paul Standard's comment, printed in the original, becomes more pertinent still: "In a world grown noisy and clamorous, reading remains among the very few quiet pleasures left to man. The present work hopes to be considered an attempt to bring a body of critical and expository comment to the widest circle of readers—comment upon every contributory element in bookmaking and printing generally, upon the design of letter forms and their disposition on the page. The very sight of so many different languages on these successive pages is itself a humanizing experience, suggesting as it does a striving for unity while preserving linguistic diversity by means of the printer's art." This "critical and expository comment" has been culled from a wide international range of writers, including both masters of literature and masters of the art of printing.

It's everywhere, including the moon (on the commemorative plaque left by Apollo 11 astronauts), Nike sneakers, the artworks of Barbara Kruger, Ed Ruscha, and Jenny Holzer, 2001: A Space Odyssey credits, Domino's Pizza boxes, Absolut Vodka bottles, and Red Bull cans. Richard Nixon used it for his presidential campaign, as did Hillary Clinton. Indeed, Futura is one of the most used fonts in the world today—the typeface of modern design—more so even than Helvetica. This fascinating book explores the cultural history and uses of a face that's so common you might not notice, until you start looking, and then you can't escape it. Douglas Thomas traces Futura from its Bauhaus-inspired origin in Paul Renner's 1924 design, to its current role as the go-to choice for corporate work, logos, motion pictures, and advertisements. Never Use Futura is illuminating, sometimes playful, reading, not just for type nerds, but for anyone interested in how typefaces are used, take on meaning, and become a language of their own.