Haley’s writing style is pleasurably refined and comes across as authoritative without being didactic. His introduction, essays and tidbits sprinkled between the designer profiles are concise and quite informative. Any type designer will benefit from cogent observations that clearly derive from Haley’s years of experience in the industry.

My one issue with this book is its low editorial/production quality. Sure, it’s a nicely bound hardcover with some color illustrations, but it suffers from glaring shoddiness in its details. Dozens of typeface samples have been substituted with Courier due to their unavailability(?); the presence of an explanatory editor’s note doesn’t excuse this shortcoming. Widows frequent the pages, though they are outnumbered by rampant spelling errors. There’s even an instance (on page 22, top right column) of inexplicably truncated copy. This is surprising and all the more lamentable considering the book’s subject matter and its intended audience. One can only hope that a second edition will do better justice to Type’s worthy text.

—Delve Withrington