Free Hand - New Typography Sketchbooks

Typography can embrace functions beyond the purely communicative. From type designers to expressive illustrators, each graphic designer has his or her own way of crafting or applying typefaces.

This show-all tour through leading graphic designers’ personal sketchbooks reveals the creative processes behind the creation of typefaces, word-images and logos. Arranged alphabetically by name, the world’s most exciting designers and typographers, including Philippe Apeloig, Ed Benguiat, Hoefler Type Foundry, Henrik Kubel, Toshi Omagari and Francesco Zorzi, present a staggering range of unique and exciting ways to communicate through letters and words. Sketchbook pages reveal the designers’ creative processes across diverse briefs, concepts, languages and alphabets, from Roman to Cyrillic to Arabic.

Aimed at all those who engage creatively with type, whether by hand or on screen, this rich compendium of typographic ideas stresses the importance of typographic thinking at a time when reading habits are evolving, while celebrating the varied and innovative ways that designers practise this time-honoured craft.