ABC of Fonts – serie

One of the most beautiful handcrafted typefaces in the world, Albertus is also one of the most enduring. The face of thousands of book jackets, and the chosen look for David Bowie, Coldplay, Star Wars and London street signs, Albertus is as as warmly enticing on film posters as it is on memorial plaques.The story of the font is one displacement (its designer Berthold Wolpe was a German Jewish refugee who went on to design the masthead for The Times), but also one of permanence, for it has proved a fresh, vibrant and indestructible face for almost a century. In this unique celebration, the designer's children reveal the history of its creation and the erratic brilliance of their father, while the book grapples with one of the fundamental artistic questions: what makes great art not only survive but flourish in each new age and medium?

The classic elegant English typeface, still widely used as a book text more than 250 years since its creation. Baskerville is a transitional design, poised between the first metal types and modern styles, notable for its combination of fat and thin strokes. When it was first used there was genuine concern that it would damage readers' eyes.John Baskerville was a maverick lacquer maker and printer in Birmingham, a flamboyant dresser, an important figure in the Enlightenment. Though it earned him little money, he was obsessive about both his typeface and its appearance on the page, a perfectionism culminating in his magnificent Bible. The story encompasses one of the first powerful women of the printing world, his wife Sarah Baskerville, and the many typefaces the Baskervilles inspired. And it examines why John Baskerville's body was dug up and buried many times before it was finally allowed to rest in peace.