Alan Peckolick: Teaching Type to Talk

Hardcover |24.23 x 2.21 x 31.22 cm | 168 pp

Pointed Leaf Press | 2013 | 9781938461064

In the mid-1960s and 1970s, American graphic designer Alan Peckolick heralded a movement in graphic design, known as expressive typography. Along with his mentor and icon Herb Lubalin, Peckolick called for a new caliber of design, creating and hand-drawing letterforms that had never existed before. Type, which once exclusively played a supporting role to the graphic image, now took centre stage.

Calling for conceptual typography over a standardised format, Peckolick gave letterforms a presence on the page – and also an attitude: His designs talk back, and always speak up. Teaching Type to Talk is the first-ever compendium to span the typographer’s career. Peckolick’s work is equal parts witty, shrewd, and impeccable, and is accompanied by original anecdotes as insightful and tongue-in-cheek as his designs.