Logo Font & Lettering Bible: A Comprehensive Guide to the Design, Construction and Usage of Alphabets and Symbols

Logo Font & Lettering Bible: A Comprehensive Guide to the Design, Construction and Usage of Alphabets and Symbols
Average customer rating:

My secret weapon!

An Excellent Book for a Typophile!

Candy store for creative minds (recommended)

Great resource!

Fun, witty and informative

Logo Font & Lettering Bible: A Comprehensive Guide to the Design, Construction and Usage of Alphabets and Symbols
Leslie Cabarga
Manufacturer: How Design Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Calligraphy | Graphic Design | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Graphic Arts | Graphic Design | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Calligraphy | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Arts & Photography | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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Book Description

This book is a hands-on guide to the entire process of making logos and fonts and even icons, all of which, essentially, start with the ability to draw letterforms. The intent of the book, in fact, is to enable the user to end reliance on "OPF" (other people's fonts) and learn to draw your own custom logos, fonts and lettering! There are many books on the market that simply display collections of logos and fonts, and that give the history of logos and fonts. But Logo, Font & Lettering Bible is unique in that it teaches you how to create logos and fonts from scratch using traditional tools as well as the computer programs Adobe Illustrator and Fontographer (plus a bit about FontLab). The book provides all the traditional rules and tips about letter formation relating to proportion, shaping, balance, spacing, composition and actually teaches five different methods of drawing letters on computer using bezier curves. There has never been a book like this one that goes into so much detail about drawing letters and takes such a fun and irreverent approach while doing so. The book is also full of inspiration and analysis of tons of great examples of vintage and current lettering from old manuscripts to graffiti. Logo, Font & Lettering Bible also shows you how to create fancy drop shadows and other type effects. And finally, the last section provides straight talk on the business of being a logo and font designer, from advertising your work and pricing to dealing with difficult clients (aren't they all?).

This book has been almost unanimously acclaimed by professional letterers, logo designers and font creators, both young and old. It is currently in use as a text in many typography programs and several Design college educators have stated it is one of the few texts that "students are actually happy about having to purchase."

Customer Reviews:

My secret weapon!.......2007-08-17

Not only is it a terrific and easy-to-understand how-to book, but a fabulous idea-starter and it doubles as a coffee table book because it's beautiful to just thumb through.

An Excellent Book for a Typophile!.......2007-06-18

As a design instructor, I found this book an excellent resource for ideas and examples. It has a thorough explanation of Bezier curves, which is invaluable in understanding how vector based applications like Adobe Illustrator, work. Fine examples of type design are included as well.

Candy store for creative minds (recommended).......2007-04-01

Yummy! With humor, clear illustrations, and useful suggestions, Cabarga provides a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to be a letterer, illustrator, font or logo designer. But this hardbound book is not just for "wanabes." I found it includes comprehensive coverage of most everything learned throughout 30 years in the same disciplines along with new valuable timesaving tips. If I had the patience and tenacity to attempt such a compilation, it could be no more complete and not nearly as well presented as LOGO FONT & LETTERING BIBLE. My essay can now be reduced to three words: "What he says."

Leslie Cabarga, a talented illustrator and designer in his own right, does not limit examples to his own. World-renowned artists such as Gerard Huerta, Michael Doret, Tim Nikosey, Tony DiSpigna, and Seymour Chwast -- four dozen in all -- contribute to the wealth of inspiration. In the 1980's I had the privilege of working with uncles for one of these typography leaders -- producing over 200 hand-lettered packaging logos. It was there that I first saw an original triple outline inking of flourished letters by Gerard Huerta and was privileged to study a fraction of the techniques used.

Cabarga urges readers to become critics of their own work. This also reminds me of employment at the Huertas. A bulge could occur when joining curves using technical pens. After working on it for a while and thinking to myself "It's good enough," this infinitesimal area would be the first thing the creative director would point out. After admitting that I saw it too, he remarked, "If you saw it, why show it to me?" I quickly learned to be obsessively concerned about adjoining curves. Ink bulges may not be a problem today with digital lettering but there are other telltale signs of an amateur. Cabarga shows what to look for.

Your eyes are in for a tasty treat. Beautiful examples of calligraphy, and their influence on Roman font characters, are well demonstrated and discussed. But the book is by no means limited to calligraphy. Cabarga patiently differentiates cartooning, illustration, logo design, icon artwork, trademarks, and font design. LOGO FONT & LETTERING BIBLE compares digital tools such as the now defunct Macromedia FreeHand (my past favorite), Adobe Illustrator (which has supplanted the former), the seemingly forgotten Mac OS 9 version of Macromedia Fontographer (which in 2005 was integrated into the FontLab line of digital typography tools and updated to Mac OS X -- hooray!), and the preeminent FontLab.

LOGO FONT & LETTERING BIBLE covers the history of typography and encourages users to build a library of signage photos and magazine scraps for inspiration. Each subject I thought might be overlooked was eventually covered. Even esoteric techniques such as what I refer to as character ink reservoirs (called clog reduction on page 115) are here. Skeleton Strokes on page 152 demonstrates wonderful timesaving suggestions for digital lettering. Optical character spacing and stroke widths are discussed in detail beginning on page 112. Do you want to learn how to clean up the best scans for converting drawings to vector art? Jump over to page 158. Everything you want to know about Bezier (pronounced "Bez-zee-ay," thank you) curves but were afraid to ask is, well, practically everywhere but particularly in the section Bezier Curves for Cowards that begins on page 140.

Mississippi readers will approve. Just as I was thinking, the author needs to demonstrate how to arch text on a path (FreeHand did a better job than Illustrator), I turned to page 191 and, bam! There it is. The comparison on page 226 of residual shape differences in Illustrator and Fontographer after Bezier points are removed from a path is insightful. Not to leave you hanging, the book concludes with suggestions for getting work, building a portfolio, and negotiating fees. Additional resources and a helpful index rounds out 240 pages, which, like all trips to a candy store, seem to end too soon.

Great resource!.......2007-03-09

I found the book to be a great resource in logo creation. The mock logos section quickly steers one in the direction to go in your own projects. The typography part of the book is also a very interesting read. With examples and the background for the fonts in use today.

You can of course find all of this information on your own and in fact most of the issues in this book are familiar to a seasoned designer. But still I found it tremedously interesting to refresh the knowledge of the letters and their different forms.

One minus for me was in part a very cluttrered layout. Though not unreadable it was in places quite colourful and abundant - to a point where the main issue sometimes took a second seat. All in all a great book. Highly recommended!

Fun, witty and informative.......2007-03-05

A designer colleague loaned me this book and it has been a very enlightening and hilarious read. Leslie Cabarga is a very effective communicator; he combines humor, graphics, and verbal communication to tremendous effect, and beginner types like myself come out much richer for the experience. There's really a lot in this book, whether you're looking for hard and fast rules or maybe just a more robust visual sensibility, and it's got plenty of wit to spare.

Highly recommended.

Average customer rating:

10 stars out of 5!
Wonderfully done David . . .
Excellent!
Holy Cow!

ABCDZ: Alphabet Book
David Ross
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ABC in the WILD

ASIN: 1419662287
Release Date: 2007-03-07

Product Description

Help your child learn their alphabet and laugh along the way. With funny google eyed characters, tounge twisting sentences, and large colorful letters, your child is sure to be educated and entertained. Help them follow along the words and point out the letters on each page. Each letter has a unique way of presenting it's sound or sound's. Colors, shapes, and numbers are also included within many of their corrisponding letter pages. Written and Illustrated by veteran preschool teacher, father, and Graphic Designer, David Ross, this book is sure to be a hit with children and parents alike.

Customer Reviews:

10 stars out of 5!.......2007-05-11

I picked up this book from the author at a signing and my daughter LOVES it. She is almost 4 and references the characters in the book on a daily basis. The rhyme patterns make it so memorable a 4 year old will be reading it to YOU! great learning experience for children learning their ABC's, pick up this book for a good bedtime story!

Wonderfully done David . . . .......2007-04-29

David has mastered the ability to convey to kids a great way to learn how to understand reading and language . . . keep them coming . . .

Excellent!.......2007-03-28

What a great book for children learning their alphabet. Each page provides several examples of each letter sound. Children will love the goofy pictures and tongue twister phrases. Very funny, too!

Holy Cow!.......2007-03-21

That was the most knee slapping, gut busting funny, book I've ever read to my kids. My tongue is still twisted and my kids won't put the darn thing down. We all love it and recommend it to children of All ages.

Gothic and Old English Alphabets: 100 Complete Fonts (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

Average customer rating:

A must purchase for every tatto parlor
perfect book

Gothic and Old English Alphabets: 100 Complete Fonts (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Dan X. Solo
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Swash Letter Alphabets: 100 Complete Fonts (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

ASIN: 0486246957

Book Description

100 copyright-free alphabets: Blackstone, Dolbey, Germania, 97 more — with many lowercases, numerals, punctuation marks.

Customer Reviews:

A must purchase for every tatto parlor.......2006-12-22

You think I'm kidding, but I am not. I do not know how many times I have searched the calligraphy books for "Old English" for proletariats who wished just the correct typography to permanently stain some dopey word to their body, apparently to guarantee a lifetime of minimum wage employment. This is just what they are looking for. 100 pages of fonts, one of which is guaranteed to meet the victim's expectations. So, you do not need to be a calligrapher to buy this book. A tattoo parlor or even a public library will find this book indispensible. I'm not kidding.

perfect book.......2006-11-10

lots of complete fonts, Capital, lowercase and numbers. has everything i wanted so i could practice and master any style i want.

Illuminated Initials in Full Color: 548 Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

Average customer rating:

Nicely put together!
Calligraphy book
Unexpected

Illuminated Initials in Full Color: 548 Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

Manufacturer: Dover Publications
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Binding: Paperback

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The Art of Illumination

ASIN: 0486285014

Book Description

Practical archive of extraordinarily beautiful and decorative letters of the alphabet splendidly ornamented with geometric and curvilinear motifs interwoven with royal and saintly figures, mythical creatures, knights in battle, exquisite florals, and much more. A wonderful glimpse of the ancient art of manuscript illumination.

Customer Reviews:

Nicely put together!.......2007-09-07

This is especially helpful for letter-illuminating, though you need to know what you're doing because there are no guiding instructions.

Calligraphy book.......2007-09-02

I didn't get as much from this book as I'd hoped. It is beautifully illustrated.

Unexpected.......2007-05-14

This was not what I expected. The letters are back to back so you will need to make a copy of the page you want otherwise you cut into the letters on the back of the page

Art Nouveau Display Alphabets: 100 Complete Fonts (Dover Pictorial Archives)

Average customer rating:

Art Nouveau Display Alphabets: 100 Complete Fonts (Dover Pictorial Archives)
Dan X. Solo
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Book Description

100 complete fonts from Solo-type Typographers Catalog: upper and lower cases, alternate forms, swash forms, numerals, secondaries. Whiplash, organic, cursive, Orientalized, other styles. Beautiful, wide range of type fluidities suggest elegance, originality, grace, nearness to nature. Most not elsewhere.

Average customer rating:

big book, lots of fonts
Not exactly what I was expecting
A Beautiful Book and Great Reference
Ridiculously small printing- hard to see important detail
portable great font book

The Encyclopedia of Fonts
Gwyn Headley
Manufacturer: Cassell Illustrated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

With its attractive contemporary styling and unbeatable price, this invaluable guide to more than 10,000 fonts and computer typefaces is an essential purchase for graphic designers. The world of type has undergone massive changes in the past few years, allowing designers to order, pay for, and download a font in just a few minutes; the challenge is to select the right type beforehand, and that’s where this huge encyclopedia is a boon. With fonts ranging from Arabic to Bitstream to Teluga, it offers unrivaled inspiration to those who work with type everyday.

Customer Reviews:

big book, lots of fonts.......2007-01-11

It is a large book with lots of fonts but the fonts are so small you can hardly see them. This is more of a reference font book than anything.

Not exactly what I was expecting.......2006-12-19

I guess I didn't read the other reviews as carefully as I should have. I was looking for a book which would list the various fonts and give a complete (A-Z) example.

This book does that, but the author is primarily concerned with the history of fonts, which I don't really have any interest in nor is it relative to my needs. I wanted an alphabetical listing of fonts so I could flip through the book and find a font that fit my project. I haven't really figured out her organization, it's supposed to be by style and historical order, I think, I don't have the time or interest to figure it out. It's annoying. Finding examples of the fonts I have is tedious. I have to look them up in the index then find them in the book. Doesn't allow for the quick flip through I wanted to aid in font selection.

I decided to look up my fonts and hi-lite them, but this is a slow process and the ink hi-liting doesn't dry as quickly as I'd like causing the opposite page to pick up some of the color which may be confusing later. I've also found many of my most interesting fonts are not in this book. Plus sometimes her examples look nothing like my font with the same name, like architec. Her example is much heavier and nothing like the font I've seen in so many places. There are no dingbat fonts either, which I was really hoping for.

Considering it's girth it is amazing that so many semi-common fonts are left out; fonts often used in commercial layout.

A Beautiful Book and Great Reference.......2006-12-01

This is one of my all-time favorite type specimen books. It's beautifully designed and printed. Easy to handle and has about 12,000 of the best of the digital typefaces. Includes designer's name, date, foundry, etc. One of the features is that complete alphabets are shown plus a specimen line. All are the same size for easy comparison. It'd be nice if the Italic "companion" fonts were shown but as one soon realizes, that wouldn't be possible. This book is 1-1/2" thick (nice paper!). Indexes include a listing of the designers so that one can find all the type faces a person designed. Highly recommended. Use it as Gwyn Headley intended it to be used and you'll find why I think so highly of it. I've worked with type for nearly 65 years and as you can imagine I've used a lot of type books over the years. This is ranked very close to the top.

Ridiculously small printing- hard to see important detail.......2006-09-30

The printing was quite UNNECESSARILY small, and it is very difficult seeing the details clearly with the naked eye on many of the more elaborate fonts. Mr. Headley may have done a nice job putting this book together (the two stars are for him and him alone), but the publisher has cheated both the editor and the reader by apparently trying to save an extra buck where printing costs were concerned. I was extremely disappointed with this volume.

portable great font book.......2006-03-05

It shows A-Z both in upper and lower case and numbers for every font. Nice and clear design of the display for different fonts. Index of fonts in the back is easy to find a font if you know the name. Besides, there is another index of fontographers. It doesn't show font family though. It shows only the basic type in a font family, but it's OK to me. It's hard to look up a font if you don't know the name. It seperates fonts into 6 catagory - uncial & black letter, Serifs, Lineales, Miscellaneous, Scripts and Display. Under the catagory, also has subcatagory. I like it and I think it is a very good deal of the price, too.

Average customer rating:

Letters & Alphabets (Dover Pictura)
Dover
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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Floral Design (Dover Pictura)
Victorian Design (Dover Pictura)
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Islamic Design (Dover Pictura)

ASIN: 0486996352

Book Description

This amazing collection of images, selected from dozens of rare sources, displays the infinite ingenuity of designers in embellishing letters of the alphabet. All florals, animals, figures, abstracts, and other motifs that comprise an artfully designed book appear as well on a high-resolution, print-quality formatted CD. 484 black-and-white illustrations, 150 in color.

Script and Cursive Alphabets: 100 Complete Fonts (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

Average customer rating:

Script and Cursive Alphabets: 100 Complete Fonts (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Dan X. Solo
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486253066

Book Description

A rich sourcebook of type styles, from Liberty and Hannover to Virginia Antique in upper and lower-case alphabets, plus numerals.

The Graphic Alphabet (Caldecott Honor Book)

Average customer rating:

The Graphic Alphabet
... next time won't you discuss the clarity of contrast with me...
A witty alphabet book
Not just for little ones
An ABC book which uses the letters themselves as examples.

The Graphic Alphabet (Caldecott Honor Book)
David Pelletier
Manufacturer: Scholastic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Amazon.com

Most alphabet books for pre-readers and early readers set out to make the somewhat abstract idea of letters as clear and as clearly linked to words as possible. In The Graphic Alphabet, graphic designer David Pelletier has created an alphabet book that aims to explore letters for their beauty and complexity as design elements as well as help teach kids how to read. His "A," for example, stands for "avalanche," and with its normally pointed top tumbling down the right diagonal, the letter doesn't just stand for the avalanche, it becomes the word. Pelletier is equally ingenious throughout. And while this might not be the best book to make the concept of letters concrete for youngsters, it will certainly help instill in them a sense of wonder about letters and words.

Customer Reviews:

The Graphic Alphabet.......2007-06-14

Pelletier, David. The Graphic Alphabet. New York: Orchard, 1996.
ISBN: 0-531-36001-6
Award: Caldecott Honor Book

The Graphic Alphabet by David Pelletier is a book that I will definitely suggest to art teachers. What has been done with each letter is phenomenal. It kept my attention as an adult just by the design of the letters, contrast of the vibrant colors and motion or actions the letters themselves suggested. Art deals with the use of line, space, color, shape, perspective and texture. On each page of this book many of these aspects are being addressed, if not all. The letters seem to be 3 dimensional because of the design and colors used. Motion is suggested by the placement of some of the letters, i.e. the y is placed on its side as if it were yawning. The "B" bounces and is made by using a ball. The text used with the "y" is "yawn". The reader can see tiny teeth inside the mouth. Motion and movement are also suggested by the way the lines of the letters are drawn, circle, curl, etc. The "H" is placed over a dark sky with the word "hover" used as the text. The perspectives of this book are clearly for an older student rather than an elementary child. The pictures are glossy which add to the vibrant and dramatic color aspects of the book. Some of the letters seem to have texture, even though they do not. It is an illusion. I found this book intriguing to say the least.

... next time won't you discuss the clarity of contrast with me..........2005-10-10

This is kind of rare. A graphic designer without any children's book credentials to his name, creates an alphabet book in 1996 that (in his own words), "had to retain the natural shape of the letter as well as represent the meaning of the word", by using good design. So he produces the book, it wins the incredibly prestigious Caldecott Honor, and Pelletier never makes another children's book again. Now, creating kids' books is an addictive activity. You may start out with the best intentions in the world and you may tell yourself, "I'll just do this one book to get it out of my system". But after that first book garners some attention you find yourself making another and another and another. It would have made all the sense in the world for Pelletier to follow up his award winning book with one about, oh say, numbers. Yet as of this review (written in that overblown year of 2005) this particular graphic designer hasn't been any more tempted to return to the heady world of kiddie lit. Instead, he leaves us with this peculiar alphabet book that is perfect for adults who love design but probably downright bizarre to those children who are trying to learn their a, b, c's.

In this book, Pelletier takes each letter of the alphabet and displays it with a word starting with that letter. For example, A is given the word Avalanche. Looking at the letter, you see a gigantic letter A (the one on the cover) with pieces of it breaking off and falling into an abyss. For the letter N we see noodles filling a page, all looking like little lowercase N's. Get the idea? Good, because it gets a little obscure sometimes. For example, this being a book of good design, L is of course going to stand for Lines. Two 90 degree angles made up of thin lines mirror one another. In pictures such as this, kids are going to have to already know their letters to discover where they're hidden on the pages. Fortunately, Pelletier gives them a heads up right from the start. His B, standing for Bounce, looks more like a softened M than a B on its side. And it definitely takes some squinting and frowns to make the R for Rip look like much more than a gash in a page.

Certain picture books are designed with adults in mind. There should be an entire genre of to-be-read-only-by-adults alphabet books out there. None of this is to say that the book isn't lovely. The visual pleasure that comes from the complimentary strands of color in Knot or the skeletal crossing of the fingers in X-ray are lovely. As a book who's pictures are done entirely on a computer, however, this hardly deserved to win an award for great illustration. It's pleasing to the eye but from reviews already written about this book, its best for kids ages 10 and up. And therefore useless as an alphabet book.

Admittedly, "The Graphic Alphabet" is probably directly responsible for some of the more original alphabet books out there. Things like, "The Hidden Alphabet" by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, "The Turn Around Upside Down Alphabet Book" by Lisa Campbell Ernst, or even Stephen T. Johnson's, "Alphabet City". Unlike these, however, "The Graphic Alphabet" is an example of useless design. This is design as art, not as something utilitarian (like actually learning the alphabet). I'm sure Mr. Pelletier has many sterling qualities and the book is a lovely thing to look at, no question. But if you're buying it for a kid, give it to one already enrolled in a class that looks at the influences of Le Corbusier and Mondrian. Better still, pair it with Mark Gonyea's, "A Book About Design" for kids. This is a great resource but only if used in the correct way.

A witty alphabet book.......2004-09-15

In an epilogue to his 1997 Caldecott Honor Book The Graphic Alphabet, David Pelletier explains his aim: "the illustration of the letterform had to retain the natural shape of the letter as well as represent the meaning of the word." The letter does not simply stand for the word, it becomes the word. So, a "D" represents the devil, by resting on its round side with serifs accentuated into horns; three "O"'s hang from strings as ornaments; "X" is represented in an x-ray image of crossed finger-bones. Each of the letters receives one page, on which the letter appears within a black box, with the word it represents printed below. The bright colors against the black background give the illustrations an intense and dramatic mood, with a sharp quality; the glossy paper plays up the clean lines of the work. Some of the illustrations are obscure and the letters so altered and distorted as to be unrecognizable; sometimes the illustrations seem a bit like an exercise for a graphic design class and not an instructional tool. This book is certainly not appropriate for making the concept of letters concrete for young children, though children who are newly able to recognize letterforms may appreciate extending their knowledge with this book.

Not just for little ones.......2001-01-16

I wondered how could an alphabet book win a Caldecott Honor. I examined this book with my class of 10 year olds. They loved it and it inspired them to write their own. This book isn't just for little ones learning their alphabet!

An ABC book which uses the letters themselves as examples........1999-05-29

This is an alphabet book for children in which each letter is coupled with a word that is graphicly illustrated by the letter. For example, the letter A is accompanied by the word avalanche and one leg of the letter is collapsing as in an avalanch. The book was a 1997 Caldecott Honor book (i.e., a runner-up to the Medal winner) for best illustrations in a book for children. Children will enjoy identifying the letter with the "concept" representing it.

Average customer rating:

The Animated Alphabet (World Design)
Hugues Demeude
Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 050027908X

Book Description

Letters have a mysterious and cabalistic quality that has inspired artists through the ages. Calligraphers, painters, and engravers have never ceased to shape and decorate them, using them as a starting point for limitless dreams and fantasies. The illuminated initials of medieval manuscripts, ranging from Romanesque exuberance to Gothic excess, paved the way. Here were not only Biblical scenes but also mythical beasts and human figures that were direct precursors of the zoomorphic and anthropomorphic alphabets of the Renaissance and later. With the invention of printing, the inventiveness of artists knew no bounds. Ornamented letters presented historical and mythical events, romantic landscapes, trees, flowers, buildings, clowns, devils, children, and every kind of animal. There was, indeed, no subject that could not be put to the service of the animated alphabet. Hugues Demeude shares his passion for the decorated letter in a succinct historical text and a vast range of beautifully reproduced examples from the eighth to the twentieth century, from sacred illuminated manuscripts to mass-produced postcards. Lovers of art and design will relish the decorative profusion, which includes examples from the Corbie Psalter and Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, and the work of artists such as Albrecht Drer, Hans Holbein, Lucas Cranach, Honor Daumier, and Kate Greenaway.

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