Following his ‘Mitteleuropa and Bethnal Green, 1946’, Paul Stiff expands on another theme of Modern typography in Britain.

This week we received copies of Modern typography in Britain: a very packed and rich set of discussions, which will surely come to define its still too little comprehended subject. The book is at the same time Typography papers 8, and continues Typography papers’s work of publishing fully serious, lively and comprehensible articles.

The next Hyphen book, Modern typography in Britain: graphic design, politics, and society – a special issue of Typography papers 8 – is now at the printers. It will be published in September.

For a foretaste of Typography papers 8, have a look at Paul Stiff’s ‘Mitteleuropa and Bethnal Green’ (‘Mitteleuropa’ = Central Europe). TP8 is a special issue of the irregular but still serial publication, and for once it will carry a title or subtitle: ‘Modern typography in Britain: graphic design, politics and society’.

We have received the first copies of Typography papers 7 in the office. It looks fine. Four-colour printing is used, for only the second time in Typography papers, for some pictures in Sue Walker’s article on letterforms for young readers in early twentieth-century English publications, and for a remarkable diagram made by Brian Coe, as part of the work of the Graphic Information Research Unit at the Royal College of Art, remembered in an article by Linda Reynolds, its chief researcher. Silver ink is used as a third colour on the cover, to reproduce the letter-stencil that is the subject of Eric Kindel’s article. The issue leads with a path-breaking article on ‘The young Garamont’ by Hendrik Vervliet, and includes also spirited pieces by Giovanni Lussu and the late Justin Howes. Copies of Typography papers 7 should reach our London warehouse in early August, and can then be bought (as usual) through good bookshops and direct from Central Books. It will be released in North America in the early autumn, when copies arrive at our distributor’s warehouse there.

After much delay, copies of Typography papers 6 are available for sale in Europe.

Designers, places, publications are woven together and put in historical perspective in this short text by Paul Stiff. It appears in Italian translation in Progetto grafico, no.4/5, 2005, to whose editors we extend thanks and greetings.

We are very pleased to announce that Hyphen Press is taking over publication of Typography papers: the distinguished, occasional, book-length work from the Department of Typography, University of Reading. In-print back numbers can now be ordered from Central Books. The next issue (number 6) is due for publication in spring 2005.

The new issue of Typography papers (no. 4), published by the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading contains an article by Peter Burnhill, ‘Type spaces’, and a symposium on these ideas. This is the first presentation of his research into the typography of Aldus Manutius. Burnhill finds a unified system of dimensions to be present there, as both a physical and a syntactic structuring device. A group of designers then respond to this thesis. We plan to publish Burnhill’s work fully, as a book. Meanwhile, readers are urged to get hold of this interim publication.