Authored by designer Robin Kinross, this volume offers a tour through the history of Western typography, from the time when it can be said to have become “modern” to the present moment.

It highlights different cultures at different times, tracing the developments and shifts in modern typography while giving attention to ideas, social contexts, and techniques, thereby also bypassing the tired tropes of stylistic analysis.

Included are concise accounts of modernist typography in Central Europe between the wars, and in Switzerland in the 1950s and ’60s. Traditional typography in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and the Low Countries is also discussed sympathetically.

Kinross examines the social, technical and material contexts in which typographers operate, the argument also considers principles and explanations of practice. This volume is a classic text in many ways, providing a lively and critical narrative of historical development, a springboard for further investigation, and reproductions of not-often-seen items.

Designed by Françoise Berserik

Published by Éditions B42, 2019

Part of The Hyphen Press series
First HP edition published in 1992

Softcover, 272 pages, 5.12 × 8.27 inches

ISBN: 978-2-49-007717-5