Building Ligatures

Building Ligatures, a 248-page book presents a well-balanced mix of know-how texts written by TypeTogether’s core team and essays by some of the most respected and influential design writers and experts in the typographic industry. Featured contributors include Fiona Ross, Catherine Dixon, Gerry Leonidas, Veronika Burian, and José Scaglione, among others.

Selected essays reflect not only on philosophical and ethical considerations, but also on practical and technological aspects of typographic life. Discussions range from font quality, digital typesetting, matchmaking and licensing, multiscript typography, and history of type design, to more fundamental questions, such as whether the world still needs new typefaces. The texts are accompanied by a series of photographs documenting the life of the foundry from its beginnings to the present day, and a selection of typefaces published by TypeTogether which are paired with their brief impressions by acclaimed theoreticians and font users.

The name of the book Building ligatures: The Power of Type refers to one of the basic terms of the typographic world. In typography a ligature is a connection, an unbreakable bond between parts that results in something new, useful, and evocative. Over the course of our fifteen years in existence, the TypeTogether type foundry has built precisely that, both literally and figuratively, said José Scaglione, the cofounder of TypeTogether type foundry.

A unique feature of this publication is an original fold-out anatomy presenting a variety of world scripts, which has never been available in similar form before. The reader can learn more about the anatomy of Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek, Latin, and the Thai alphabet.

Building ligatures: the power of type is a creative and eye-opening book that will inspire and encourage design and type design students, as well as provide a sourcebook for designers and educators. The story of TypeTogether presented in this book traverses continents, cultures, scripts, languages, new technologies, and above all, type and those who love it, said Veronika Burian, the co-founder and type director at TypeTogether.

Building Ligatures

Publisher: TypeTogether
Editor: Linda Kudrnovská
Design: Filip Blažek
Volume: 248 p. in full color
Format: 156 × 232 mm
Internal typefaces used: “Bely” and “Lektorat” from TypeTogether
Paper: Fedrigoni Arena
Price: € 25.–
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