Review of Robert Bringhurst's the Solid Form of Language

In an age of electronic printing, it is challenging to find an author that makes a living text what it truly is: viable. Robert Bringhurst delves into a fascinating world about the history of language. In The Solid Form of Language (2004), Bringhurst, outlines the history of everything from Cyrillic lettering to Arabic script in an effort to understand the evolution of language. He performs an analysis of language in tandem with political dynasties, industrial civilization and the shift away from the Latin alphabet.

He makes an interesting point about design, notably that,

"The same industrial civilization that gave us Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Devanagari, Japanese, and Chinese types with similar characteristic: a global epidemic of Helveticas. No one can determine, by examining these fonts, the religious or political opinions of their designers or manufacturers."

What I find intriguing about this comment is the connection between standardization, typeface, and the economy. In today's society, text and language have been codified into transcript, which makes me wonder, why? Helvetica the standard font in the design world. Those who use and maintain the demand for language as business follow the laws of cool. The laws of cool insist that style is acceptable, homogenized, and then it reverberates into distinctions.

The cover of Bringhurst's book is covered in a papyrus-like sheaf. Like the novel, Tree of Life or The People of Paper, the contemporary model of the text is stylized. Tree of Life features cutouts of poetry, including big, wounded gashes in the storyline. I find that this material posits the book further as a print, visual entity in a physical realm.

Image is from Prêt à Voyager.