In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles.
Another font evolves in the digital realm
Advertisement for Centaur typeface from 1948
Recently, I've been reading about T.E. Lawrence (also known as John Hume Ross, T.E. Shaw, and thanks to Hollywood – Lawrence of Arabia). In my research I came across a story about how Lawrence came to write a translation of Homer's The Odyssey. Most people aren't aware that Lawrence was trained as a historian and archaeologist, not a military strategist. Leading up to WWI, it was his knowledge of the region from his work as an archeologist that convinced the British army to arrange an archeological survey of the Negev desert as a ruse for actually mapping the region for the military. That experience led him to join British Intelligence in Cairo, where he eventually would be sent to help organize the Arab rebellion against the Ottoman Empire that made him famous (some would say infamous). While Lawrence's exploits during WWI made him famous, his life after WWI isn't very well known. Shunning the spotlight, he actually managed to re-enter the military under false names – first the Royal Air Force (RAF), then the Royal Tank Corps, then back to the RAF. It was while working as a clerk in the RAF that he was contacted by a friend who had met the…