Unjustified Texts. Perspectives on Typography

A book of writings from twenty-five years of engagement on the peripheries of both journalism and academic life, and drawn largely from small-circulation and now hard-to-access publications. Persistent themes include: editorial typography, the emergence of graphic design in Britain, emigré designers, Dutch typography, the work of critical modernist designers
Over twenty-five years Robin Kinross has written for publication in magazines and journals, making a case for typography as a matter of fine detail and subtle judgement, whose products concern all of us, everyday. This selection of his shorter writings – including some previously unpublished – brings his major themes into focus: the unsung virtues of editorial design and of information design, the fate of Modernism in the twentieth century, the work of dissident and critical Modernist designers, the contributions of emigré designers from Europe in the English-speaking world, the virtues of a socially-oriented design approach. He argues for a design that is of use in the world, and against the cult of design and the delusions of theory. The out-of-print pamphlet Fellow readers (1994) is reprinted in full. A separate section of illustrations with extended critical captions presents these themes in a direct and accessible way. Kinross introduces the book with a fresh essay that recalls just how these pieces came into existence. The book presents an unexpected body of writing, which stakes out fresh territory between the purely academic and the merely journalistic.
out of print