Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Petite Histoire des lettres / A Brief History of Letters

Petite Histoire des lettres / A Brief History of Letters

Ghys, Étienne

Paperback

Sports GeneralGeneral ArtGeometry

ISBN10: 2415015857
ISBN13: 9782415015855
Publisher: Odile Jacob
Published: Jun 9 2026
Pages: 158
Weight: 0.40
Height: 0.34 Width: 5.51 Depth: 8.07
Language: French
We read them without thinking about it, but each letter conforms to a certain geometry, an x-height, a baseline, curves that are either well-defined or deliberately broken.
This book offers a different perspective on the alphabet: that of a
mathematician.
From monks' quills to Bézier curves, from Garamond's punches to today's parametric fonts, Étienne Ghys explores the history of letters through the tools that shape them
: rulers and compasses, modular grids, formulas, algorithms.
Why do lowercase letters have to be bolder than uppercase letters? How can you construct a harmonious 'S' using code? How does typographic writing relate to the concerns of surveyors, engineers and programmers?
A Brief History of Letters is a journey through five centuries of forms, ideas and techniques. At the crossroads of graphic arts and mathematics, it invites us to rediscover what is right before our eyes... but which we no longer see.

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