I am pleased to announce the publication of The Eternal Letter: Two Millennia of the Classical Roman Capital, edited by Paul Shaw and published by The MIT Press. It is the first in an annual series called "Codex Studies in Letterforms." The books will be available wherever books are sold in the U.S. next week, a couple of weeks later in Canada, sometime in March in the U.K. and Europe, and in April in Asia and Australia. It can be ordered now on the various Amazon sites.
The series is the outcome of the late Codex magazine. As the magazine had become more ambitious and more focused on themes, turning it into a book series made the best sense; the headaches of distribution and shipping would taken up by others, freeing us to concentrate on content. We've also had generous support from Adobe/Typekit, Monotype, Mark Simonson Studio, and Courier Corporation. The terrific John Boardley signed over the keys to Paul, who's now running it with Linda Florio, the designer, and me as producer, coeditor, and general impresario. Paul and I are longtime friends and I was producer of the MIT Press edition of his Helvetica and the New York City Subway System.
What distinguishes this book from most other books about type and letterforms is that its authors—there are 24 of them—are largely master craftsmen, including many of the leading type designers, stonecarvers, and letterers of our time mixed with serious historians. The contributors include John and Nicholas Benson (in a deeply informative conversation with Richard Kindersley), Frank E. Blokland (on the transition from Classical letterforms to type), Matthew Carter (on the making of his Mantinia type), Ewan Clayton (on Eric Gill's capitals), Lance Hidy (on his Penumbra type), Jost Hochuli (on Walter Kaech), Jonathan Hoefler (on Requiem), Scott-Martin Kosofsky (on the birth of Adobe Trajan), Gerry Leonidas (on Adobe Trajan Greek), Martin Majoor (on Jan van Krimpen's capitals), Steve Matteson (on Goudy's inscriptional letters), Gregory MacNaughton (on Father Edward M. Catich), James Mosley (on the Renaissance revivals of Classical letterforms), Werner Schneider (on his Senatus type), Paul Shaw, Julian Waters (on Waters titling), Maxim Zhukov (on the Trajan letter in the Soviet Union), Yves Peters (on Trajan at the movies), and Paul Shaw on very many things.
It's a big book, well printed and bound (hardcover), with well over 400 illustrations—full color throughout—including many things that haven't been seen in print before.
We're working on the next two volumes: Aspects of Typographic Modernism (2016) and a book about Neoclassicism, concentrating on new research about Bodoni and his circle (2017). And we've mapped out five further volumes. Our aim is to publish serious work on serious typographic and lettering subjects. We are eager to hear your opinions and ideas.
AND . . . there will be launch event at the Type Directors Club, New York City, on Thursday, February 19th, 6:00-8:30 pm. Admission is free (thanks to MIT Press), but they ask that you register in advance, so we don't run out of food and drink, especially drink. https://www.tdc.org/event/the-eternal-letter/
I apologize to the moderator for using this noble forum for making such a blatantly commercial announcement, though it does come with an offer of free food and drink. I do, however, believe the book will have considerable value to many of you, and might provide fodder for future threads.