Every time you send an email you have a choice of hundreds of fonts, and this exquisite collection focuses on fonts that are based on handwriting or cursive script. Over 300 examples are collected in the book, and an accompanying CD gives you a free download of 122 to use for your own special purposes, for instance invitations, posters, or business cards. Each font has a page to itself where the whole alphabet is displayed in upper and lower case, followed by numerals and the most common punctuation marks. Finally a whole sentence showcases the font by using every word in the alphabet: "Forsaking monastic tradition, twelve jovial friars gave up their vocation for a questionable existence on the flying trapeze." Many of the fonts are accompanied by illustrations in which they feature on posters and book covers. The different styles of script are classified according to the way they are produced, for instance "Italian and French Italics", "Brush and Swash" or "Decorative and Freestyle". One of the most popular cursive fonts today is Mistral, illustrated here by a specimen sheet from 1957. The bold and assertive Ballpark is accompanied by an advertising poster for a DKW motorbike from 1938, while the whimsical and spidery LainieDaySH is illustrated by a book cover for a 1992 novel Margaret in Hollywood. ITC Zapf Chancery was used for the 1979 edition of The Amorous Adventures of Fanny Hill, while Pablo, a typeface of 1995, is based on a 1906 letter of Pablo Picasso to Leo and Gertrude Stein. Xiparos is inspired by the crabbed script of a German manuscript of 1206, while FranciscoLucas Llana comes from a writing manual of 1540 by Palatinus. Fonts can be works of art, and a gorgeous New York Times magazine cover from 2009 uses Volupia, created in 2005, in an abstract swirl incorporating the names of contributors. 14.6 x 22cm, 496pp, index of designs, numerous colour illustrations, CD.
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