Typeractive: 30 Years of Device Fonts collects three decades of work by designer, illustrator and typographer Rian Hughes, documenting the evolution of his independent type foundry from its beginnings in 1995 to the present day.
Featuring over 300 typeface families, from the restrained versatility of Korolev and Paralucent to more experimental and eccentric designs, the book presents Hughes’s complete catalogue alongside specially designed specimens, complete glyph sets, fonts in use, archival research and work-in-progress.
Typeractive is more than a catalogue of typefaces – it explores the ideas, influences and processes behind the work, revealing how Hughes’s designs developed from initial concept through to their final form.
The book also reaches back beyond the founding of Device Fonts to Hughes’s early FontShop releases and his pre-digital lettering experiments, including work created with Rotring pen and Rubylith.
Packed with type, imagery, history and insight, Typeractive is both a comprehensive record of Hughes’s typographic career and an invaluable reference for graphic designers, typographers, lettering artists, logo designers, illustrators, comic artists and anyone fascinated by the possibilities of the alphabet.
About the Artist
Rian Hughes is an award-winning graphic designer, illustrator, comic artist, author and typographer whose career has encompassed British and American advertising, music, comics, publishing and typography.
His distinctive approach to lettering and design has seen him create some of the most recognisable logos and visual identities in comics, while his type foundry, Device Fonts, has released hundreds of original typefaces since its establishment in 1995.
Hughes is the author of Logo-a-gogo, Custom Lettering of the ’20s and ’30s, Rayguns and Rocketships and the ‘typographic novel’ XX. His typefaces have been used extensively across publishing, comics, advertising, television and popular culture.
