In the Land of Punctuation

Christian Morgenstern

A darkly delightful 1905 German ode to punctuation, newly illustrated in gorgeous typographic art by Indian graphic designer Rathna Ramanathan:

Advice from My 80-Year-Old Self: Real Words of Wisdom from People Ages 7 to 88

Susan O'Malley

“Nothing will be what you expected.”

People ages 7 to 88 share the advice their 80-year-old selves would give their current selves:

Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology

Barrie Tullett

A visual history of typewriter art from 1893 to today – how Victorian female stenographers pioneered a unique art form with newfound notoriety in the digital age

Things I have learned in my life so far, Updated Edition

Stefan Sagmeister

“Everybody who is honest is interesting.” … and other hard-earned learnings on life from Stefan Sagmeister, rendered as gorgeous typographic maxims

Self-Portrait as Your Traitor

Debbie Millman

“One must have a reason for reflection — an eye to admire variations.”

Debbie Millman’s stunning visual poetry – a kind of 21st-century illuminated manuscript at the intersection of the deeply personal and the universally profound, blending typography and philosophy

Marian Bantjes: Pretty Pictures

Marian Bantjes

“If you have something of interest to say, it’s OK to make people work for it. … It makes them feel triumphant when they succeed.”

Bantjes is back:

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks

Keith Houston

Ironic Serif – a brief history of typographic snark and the failed crusade for an irony mark, from 17th-century France to digital emoticons, by way of kooky characters and spectacular failures:

Self Portrait as Your Traitor: Visual Essays by Debbie Millman

Debbie Millman

The making of a 21st-century illuminated manuscript – inside Debbie Millman’s creative process

New York Nights

James & Karla Murray

“No other city in the world stages dusk to dawn like New York City.”

A breathtaking typographic tour of NYC by night.

Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Drop Caps)

Jane Austen

Jessica Hische’s stunning illustrated drop cap covers of literary classics. More at the link.

Typography Sketchbooks

Steven Heller

Typography Sketchbooks is like a visual window into the minds of the world’s most exciting type designers and, in turn, into the intricate art-science of typography itself — a medium both creative and practical that has to walk the tightrope between centuries-old tradition and bleeding-edge innovation with equal parts grace and agility in an era of changing reading habits and design expectations.

Everything Is Going to Be OK

In a world brimming with cynicism, it’s a rare and wonderful occasion to find an oasis of sincerity and optimism. That’s exactly what we found in the recently released Everything Is Going To Be OK — an absolutely lovely pocket-sized anthology of positive artwork from a diverse lineup of indie artists, designers and illustrators, including Brain Pickings favorites Marian Bantjes, Marc Johns and Mike Perry. What makes the book exceptional is that it manages to take existential truisms we’d ordinarily roll our eyes at, reframe them in a context of honesty and simplicity, and deliver them through such outstanding graphic design that the medium itself becomes part of the delight of the message.

Cultural Connectives: Bridging the Latin and Arabic Alphabets

Rana Rjeily

These days, news of the Middle East is a frequent staple of our daily media diet, but these media portrayals tend to be limited, one-dimensional, and reductionist. We know precious little about Arab culture, with all its rich and layered multiplicity, and even less about its language. Cultural Connectives aims to bridge this gap though a cultural cross-pollinator in the form of a typeface family designed by author Rana Abou Rjeily that brings the Arabic and Latin alphabets together and, in the process, fosters a new understanding of Arab culture.

Both minimalist and illuminating, the book’s stunning pages map the rules of Arabic writing, grammar and pronunciation to English, using this typographic harmony as the vehicle for better understanding this ancient culture from a Western standpoint.