Helvetica, much as I adore it, has had more than its fair share of attention. That’s why I’m so happy to see this new book by designer, writer, and historian Douglas Thomas all about the typeface Futura which, it’s worth noting, predated Helvetica by three full decades—and it looks as beautiful and timely as ever.
Sporting the playfully provocative title “Never Use Futura,” Thomas’s book is a cultural biography of a typeface, starting with how Futura began life as a byproduct of Bauhaus ideals, tracing its evolution over many years and countless uses into a nearly invisible “go-to choice for corporate work, logos, motion pictures, and advertisements,” and touching on the current vogue of newer, Futura-derived geometric typefaces. You might expect this book, like most books about design, to be largely illustrative and light on the prose, but a look at the handsomely designed pages promises worthwhile reading.
Learn more about the book at neverusefutura.com or order it today from amazon.com.
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