Typography

Rick Poynor|Essays

Herbert Spencer and the Decisive Detail

In Herbert Spencer’s most memorable photographs, signs of official communication fray into visual poetry.

Alexandra Lange|Essays

3rd Annual Holiday Card Review

Holiday card designs for 2012 reveal the social media preoccupations of their buyers, whether it is Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram or old-fashioned (perhaps Downton Abbey-inspired?) stationery.

Louise Fili|Books

A Life in Letters

An excerpt from Louise Fili's Elegantissima.

Alexandra Lange|Essays

Obama’s New Fonts

Obama bets on American nostalgia, shrinking Gotham and picking a script.

Bill Moran|Unusual Suspects

Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum

The Hamilton Wood Type Foundry museum, a living monument.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Studio Culture: The Materialism of Matter

Studio, print shop, dance club and store: a photographic essay on Matter's design HQ in Denver.

Rick Poynor|Essays

The Enduring Influence of Richard Hollis

An exhibition of Richard Hollis’s work provides the first public opportunity to assess the entire shape of his output.

Michael Erard|Reviews

The Elements – Molecules, Atoms and Quarks – of Style

The cipher shared by great poets and the best brand namers is essentially that the littlest things mean the most.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Typographic Stories of the City Streets

Characters, a new book by Stephen Banham, investigates the stories behind Melbourne’s street signs.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Motif Magazine: The World Made Visible

Motif magazine, founded in 1958, anticipated a new way of seeing, documenting and appreciating the “visible world.”

Pat Kirkham|Essays

Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration

The evidence, scholarship and debates: Saul Bass and the famous shower scene in “Psycho.”

Rick Poynor|Essays

Richard Hamilton, the Great Decipherer

The artist Richard Hamilton, who died this week, was an acute observer of design and the contemporary world.