For this week’s blog post I’m analyzing the language and use of typography in the third edition of Rough Guides’ travel book, Make the Most of Your Time on Earth: A Rough Guide to the World. As you can see on cover on the book they used a font the
Throughout the book, they are not just sticking one font style. Their choices of font styles are all over the place when it comes to the headlines for each section of the book. The body copy text, that’s the only font style that stays the same throughout the book. From just looking at the body text you can tell that the font size has to be 4 or 6 point font.
As for their custom font type, that seems to be constant throughout all of the section. I’m not sure what custom font they are using, but it feels like they are trying to use a font style that matches the tone of the section it’s featured. The font style they use looks like Gill Sans, or it could be something that closely resembles that font family. The top left example above, Mountian Biking Welsh Trails, the custom font style matches the story. When you think of mountain biking trails, what font style do you think of? You would probably think of a rugged and edgy type of font.
As for the language of the book, the name of the book speaks for itself, “Make the Most of Your Time on Earth: A Rough Guide to the World.” But I like how they play with the headlines for each of the chapters because they’re sort of straightforward. I believe that they try to use a headline that not only matches the tone of the story but also matches the featured image for that section. For example, the image on the left, its headline says, “The Adobe of Silence: the most beautiful desert on Earth.” That’s a good example of how a headline and featured image can work together to set the tone of the story.
In the front of every section, they feature a story about a traveler’s experience. It’s a creative way and unique way to start off each chapter of the book. I feel that they use the traveler’s story as a way to segue into the chapter of the section.
