The publication 26 is a speculative 26th chapter of the book Theory of Type Design by Gerard Unger (22 Jan 1942-23 Nov 2018). Despite that the number 26 will always remain a benchmark in the Latin type world, Unger’s book about those Latin letters only consists out of 25 chapters. As Gerry Leonidas describes it in his foreword, Unger’s book “offers a reference point for the design community to respond to, and, not least, for other authors to contribute further.” So did Gerard Unger deliberately not include a 26th chapter? Is this book actually a request for other type designers to respond to? Can Unger’s choice for writing 25 chapters be regarded as an open invitation for anybody to write their own version of the missing 26th chapter themselves? We hope to read many 26th chapters by other type designers in the future, which will keep Unger’s spirit of writing on type design alive. Bring on the responses. Our 26th chapter is this publication.

The text in this publication is an elaboration of the talk Underware held during the book presentation on 6 September 2018 at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. 26 was written and published by Underware on the occasion of TypeAmsterdam 2019.

Win a free copy!
We’re giving away 26 copies of the publication 26. For free! And we really mean “free” as in free. No hidden meanings, which is almost an exception these days. We’ll randomly pick 26 addresses from those who apply, and then we’ll ship the publication for free. This publication is not for sale. With other words: this is your only chance.

If you want to participate in this raffle and win a free copy of this publication, make sure you send your name & full postal address before 22 November 2019 to info@underware.nl and mention “I wanna win 26!”. Winners will be notified before 1 December.