Alphabet in Motion: How Letters Get Their Shape

With an interactive cover, 17 pop-ups and hands-on activities throughout, Alphabet in Motion is an immersive introduction unlike any other to the history of typography and letter shapes

Ever wonder how we ended up with so many different styles of letters? Open any text editor, email client or design app and you will immediately be bombarded with a buffet of typographic choices. Serif or sans serif? Display or text? Classical or contemporary? Formal or casual?

Featuring 17 stunning interactive pop-ups, this ABC pop-up book explains—as well as demonstrates—the technologies and philosophies that have shaped letterforms through the ages. Readers will learn about '60s psychedelic type by projecting light through a phototypesetting pop-up; how screen technology shaped letterforms by turning on and off anti-aliasing; or the aesthetics of typographic modularity by reconfiguring the puzzle pieces of Josef Albers' Kombinations-Schrift.

Type history is often technical and always visual. It is therefore challenging to fully explain in text or in diagrams alone. The book's interactive features provide a sensory inroad for curious general readers to grasp how typography has transformed through history (and how lettering can convey a point of view or philosophical stance). A 128-page companion essay section includes an essay further contextualizing each pop-up. Alphabet in Motion puts the reader's hands, eyes and minds in touch with the meanings behind the typography that surrounds us in our homes, on our screens and on our streets. If you look carefully, you can see the history of the world—from the Bronze Age to the Information Age—in the microcosm of type.

Kelli Anderson is a graphic designer, paper engineer, educator and author who uses design magic to connect people with the hidden talents of everyday things. Her previous publications include This Book Is a Camera (MoMA, 2015)—which transforms into a working camera—and This Book Is a Planetarium (Chronicle, 2017)—which houses paper devices (including a planetarium) and has sold more than 100,000 copies.