Myths & Marvels of Astronomy

Chapter 5 of Richard Proctor’s 1896 publication of Myths and Marvels of Astronomy outlines philosophical ideas related to space, time and humans’ incomplete perception of both. This subject has always intrigued me and serves as one of my mental workouts. The entire digital copy of the book is free and available to enjoy on The Project Gutenberg website, linked here. The pocked-sized book below uses Proctor’s words, but has been edited for the sake of digestion and portability.

The themes Proctor outlined in 1896 still hold true today: humans understand very little of space and time, but our fascination with both is insatiable and has been evolving since we arrived on the planet. As a nod to that evolution, this chapbook features 23 different typefaces, appearing chronologically by the typographical era they belong to, as a way of demonstrating a parallel evolution of design within the same timeframe as our evolving understanding of space. Each page of the book represents its own typographical era, and each typeface is featured on the cover of the chapbook below.

Typography | Long-form Layout