Arabic script remains one of the most widely employed writing systems in the world, for Arabic and non-Arabic languages alike. Focusing on naskh—the style most commonly used across the Middle East—Letters of Light traces the evolution of Arabic script from its earliest inscriptions to digital fonts, from calligraphy to print and beyond. J. R. Osborn narrates this storied past for historians of the Islamic and Arab worlds, for students of communication and technology, and for contemporary practitioners.
The partnership of reed pen and paper during the tenth century inaugurated a golden age of Arabic writing. The shape and proportions of classical calligraphy known as al-khatt al-mansub were formalized, and variations emerged to suit different types of content. The rise of movable type quickly led to European experiments in printing Arabic texts. Ottoman Turkish printers, more sensitive than their European counterparts to the script’s nuances, adopted movable type more cautiously. Debates about “reforming” Arabic script for print technology persisted into the twentieth century.
Arabic script continues to evolve in the digital age. Programmers have adapted it to the international Unicode standard, greatly facilitating Arabic presence online and in word processing. Technology companies are investing considerable resources to facilitate support of Arabic in their products. Professional designers around the world are bringing about a renaissance in the Arabic script community as they reinterpret classical aesthetics and push new boundaries in digital form.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, type for newspapers and books was set one letter at a time, and the manufacturers of the metal type used in the printing trade were called typefounders. This prominent yet rarely documented industry was essential to the development of modern American publishing and was particularly prevalent in St. Louis. In Recasting a Craft: St. Louis Typefounders Respond to Industrialization, Robert A. Mullen recognizes the city’s significant contributions to typefounding and details how the craft fundamentally changed through mechanization, growth, and the creation of a large conglomerate.
Like many trades of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that were eventually lost to industrialization, the typefoundries of St. Louis grew from small shops to factories with organized labor. Mullen describes three distinct periods of the industry that emerged in St. Louis’s typefounding trade: the early struggles in establishing the industry there, the period of intense competition and creative enterprise, and the proliferation of new companies that appealed to those customers who felt alienated by the monopolizing older companies.
Mullen discusses at length the technological, social, and demographic foundations of the immense growth of the trade in the nineteenth century, identifying the changes in typographical design and the demand for it in the new era of advertising. He also profiles the workers, working conditions, and labor issues—such as the failed industry-wide strike of 1903—that emerged as the craft of typefounding entered the industrial age. More than two hundred type designs that originated with the St. Louis firms are listed in an appendix with examples of each face. The volume also contains a list of the catalogs of the St. Louis typefoundries known to exist in the public and academic libraries of the United States.
2023 50 Books | 50 Covers Award, The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)
2024 Honorable Mention, Design Awards, Graphis
2024 Finalist, Typography Competition, Communication Arts Magazine
A beautifully illustrated exploration of the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection.
The Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection is a comprehensive collection of wood type manufactured and used for printing in nineteenth-century America. Comprising nearly 150 typefaces of various sizes and styles, it was amassed by noted design educator and historian Rob Roy Kelly starting in 1957 and is now held by the University of Texas. Although Kelly himself published a 1969 book on wood type and nineteenth-century typographic history, there has been little written about the creation of the wood type forms, the collection, or Kelly.
In this book, David Shields rigorously updates and expands upon Kelly’s historical information about the types, clarifying the collection’s exact composition and providing a better understanding of the stylistic development of wood type forms during the nineteenth century. Using rich materials from the period, Shields provides a stunning visual context that complements the textual history of each typeface. He also highlights the non-typographic material in the collection—such as borders, rules, ornaments, and image cuts—that have not been previously examined. Featuring over 300 color illustrations, this written history and catalog is bound to spark renewed interest in the collection and its broader typographic period.
The relationships between philosophy and aesthetics and between philosophy and politics are especially pressing issues today. Those who explore these themes will applaud the publication—for the first time in English—of this important collection, one that reveals the scope and force of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s reflections on mimesis, subjectivity, and representation in philosophical thought.
This coherent and rigorous body of work reflects the author’s complex and subtle treatment of mimesis in the history of philosophy from Plato to Heidegger. It contains close critical analyses of works by Plato, Diderot, Hölderlin, Reik, Girard, and Heidegger, and moves through topics such as music, autobiography, tragedy, and the problem of historical and political self-definition.
Because Lacoue-Labarthe deals with issues that cross disciplinary lines, his work will appeal to readers interested in philosophy as it relates to politics, history, and aesthetics, especially literature. By showing that the concept of mimesis is an integral part of philosophical reasoning, he provides a challenging approach to many of Heidegger’s ideas, and contributes to the poststructuralist (or postmodem) attempt to rethink the notions of reference and representation. This approach challenges readers to redefine their understanding of history and politics.
One of the most gifted and active of the younger French philosophers, Lacoue-Labarthe is a respected peer of Jacques Derrida, who has provided an extensive introduction to the book especially for American readers. Those who are familiar with Derrida’s writings will appreciate the opportunity to see his questions approached in an entirely different style by Lacoue-Labarthe, resulting in productive new insights.
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