Simon Garfield

“Of course you can judge a book by its cover; moreover, we are obliged to.”

“Ecofont is designed to save ink, money and eventually the planet, but heaven save us from worthy fonts. Ecofont is a program that adds holes to a font. The software takes Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman and prints them is if they had been attacked by moths. They retain their original shape but not their original form, and so lose their true weight and beauty... a study at the University of Wisconsin claimed that Ecofonts, such as Ecofont Vera Sans, actually uses more ink and toner than lighter fonts such as Century Gothic...”

“In 1979 the New York Times reported that in many {New York Subway} stations, the signs are so confusing that one is tempted to wish they were not there at all - a wish that is, in fact, granted in numerous stations and on all too many of the subway cars themselves.”

“Ironically, the first full Baskerville biography published by CUP in 1907 was printed in Caslon”

“...the book typographer's job was building a window between the reader inside a room and that landscape which is the author's words. He may put up a stained glass window of marvelous beauty, but a failure as a window; that is he may use some rich superb type like text gothic that is something to be look at, not through.”

“These days, digitization enables us to view the copies [of the Gutenberg Bible] online without the need for a trip to the Euston Road, although to do so would be to deny oneself one of the great pleasures in life. The first book ever printed in Europe - heavy, luxurious, pungent and creaky - does not read particularly well on an iPhone.”

“One thing was for sure: no one wanted a repeat of Christopher Barker’s Bible of 1631, which omitted the negative from the seventh commandment so that it read, ‘Thou shalt commit adultery.”