When you need the right font...

When you need the company of a good typeface, designer and typographer Alex Haigh has the solution. His Little Black Font Book is affordable, small enough to fit in your pocket, nicely designed and printed, and has 30 pages of typographic delight inside. Released last month at £4.99, it has risen to number one position on the Typography chart in Amazon.co.uk's Graphic Arts section.

"Little Black Font Book is a modern take on a traditional type catalogue," says Haigh. "It's a typographic look book that aims to inspire designers during those desperate times of creative block."

Highlights include fonts sold by Haigh's online foundry, HypeForType, such as Otto by Non-Format, Neo Deco by Alex Trochut, Anthony Burrill's typeface Kit Form, and F37 Bella designed by Rick Banks. While other type catalogues present type black on white, showing the alphabet and numerals along with 'The quick brown fox...', Haigh wanted something more creative and inspiring. So he put together copy and designs that say a little more about the look and feel of each typeface.

"Although I get to design occasionally whilst running HypeForType, I must admit I miss it massively. I'm a designer at heart and that will never leave so this was a great chance for me to do that thing I passionately love doing," he says.

Aside from the perfect bound spine, uncoated stock with an extra flourish of laminate on the cover, the most striking thing about the book is its size. It's DL format, which means it is roughly the size of a business envelope. "Two things came into my head when I made the decision about the size of the book," continues Haigh. "The first was the fact that when you're looking for a font, browsing black type on a white background is pretty uninspiring. The second was simply to get something on a designer's desk, period. So those two ideas in themselves seemed to gel perfectly. The book is DL size which means it fits beautifully in some black envelopes we had made up, doesn't cost a fortune to send, and it also fits in your handbag, your back pocket, your desk drawer, and on your desk."