Hermann Zapf, one of the most respected and celebrated typeface designers of the twentieth century died this week at the age of 96. His New York Times obituary mentions some… Read more »

A significant shift in naval communications protocol happened this April: the U.S. Navy, which since the nineteenth century has issued all of its official communications in all capital letters, authorized… Read more »

On the occasion of the UK publication of Spitalfields Life, a collection of sketches about life in London’s East End, the writer behind the book, known only as “The Gentle… Read more »

Starting a new series design is always a fun challenge—each book in the series needs to stand on its own, but the set should add up to more than the… Read more »

Slate reports that: This fall, Indiana will become the latest state to drop a requirement to teach cursive as part of the public school curriculum. State officials alerted school leaders… 3 / Read more »

News to me, via Lapham’s Quarterly: In 1969 Vladamir Nabokov was interviewed for an article in The New York Times, and was asked, “How  do you rank yourself among writers (living) and of the… 2 / Read more »

Not content to rest on its heels following Borders’ bankruptcy, Barnes and Noble is embarking on a new branding effort. AdAge reports the retailer has dumped their previous creative agency,… Read more »

Stop! Everything you thought you knew about typesetting and good graphic design was wrong. All wrong… Back in 2010 the BBC ran a piece titled, ‘What’s so wrong with Comic… 4 / Read more »

When Simon and Schuster dropped a few clues this week to the mystery surrounding O: A Presidential Novel—a mystery the publisher seems desperate to keep alive—commentators immediately took up sleuthing… Read more »

Bibliophiles are probably aware of the many iterations of Penguin Classics, but they might be surprised to learn that, for a time, Penguin published musical scores as well. Started in… Read more »