Font Bureau Type Specimens : Third Edition
Boston, Massachusetts
© 2001 The Font Bureau, Inc.
224 black & white pages; illustrated (images of type, you see)
The FB folks have put together a catalog of typefaces that stimulates and shows well their wares. Each face and family is given the Poster treatment, wherein pithy one-liner heads are set in the face in question. This leads to compulsive page-turning, as each face's poster reads like a short-attention-span theater presentation of historical and commercial tid-bits of interest.
One might be concerned that the text overwhelms the attraction of the type-forms, but the opposite happens. As each face is given an appropriate selection of texts, the resulting settings are both harmonious and supportive of their content and context.
There are all the FB favorites: the great sellers, Interstate and Miller, several Venetians (both Jenson and Aldus get their say), the requisite punchy display faces, and even a few grafitti and grunge (for that special period look) faces.
This edition is from 2001, so does not include the most recent of the FB offerings; one waits anxiously for the current edition that will include the TDC2 2002 winner, Whitman, as well as the updated families from Font Bureau.
Gary Munch 2003-08-09
This volume will be in the TDC Library in September 2003