Big book of 5,000 fonts

The world of type has undergone massive changes in the past few years.

Now, designers can find a font for a particular project, order it, pay for it, and download it in a matter of just a few minutes.

The only difficult part of this process is often finding the right font.

This book shows 5,000 fonts and also gives the source for the type.

Now, for the first time since the Internet changed the way type is bought, one font book is the major resource for designers.

Carter has chosen a huge selection of "standard fonts" (Bodoni, Cheltenham, etc.) but has also included the entire collections of some of the better small font foundries that produce cutting-edge type design (Treacyfaces, P22, Type Art Foundry, 2 Rebels, and others).

Easy-to-use descriptive labels such as comic book, typewritier, handwriting, electronic, dimensional, etc. categorize the fonts. The designer who wants to make a quick search for the right font will find this system very user-friendly.

While most type books bore you to tears with page after page of "The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over the Lazy Sleeping Dog" or some variation, Carter's font book takes a whole different approach. Carter has written each of the 5,000 on-line specimens, and the font book is actually entertaining to read. (Carter writes funny; his new book "Dog Owner's Manual" is published by Andrews-McNeel, the same people who publish Gary Larson's "Far Side" books.

The "every designer should have this book on his/her desk" is often see, but rarely accurate.

In this case, this IS the one type book that every designer should own.