Specimen books provide the most rarefied inspirations for typographers. They range from important historical documents, to the finely designed, to conceptual exercises of form and content. An article in Eye magazine explores printers' contributions to the form. Unfortunately, they have cleverly left out the illustrations from their online version. But once I am done looking at it, Eye will always be available in the library.

I might have to revise my history class. New discovery of neolithic characters on tortoise shells in China 8,600 years ago is challenging the received wisdom of the history of writing. No one wants to hazard a guess what the pictographs might mean, but I'm interested in why the skeleton has several inscribed tortoise shells placed where the missing head was.

Another type conference to attend, for those of you wishing to visit land-locked Minnesota. Actually, it has a very active design community and great thunderstorms in the summer (which is when the conference is). It is a comfortable $60 for students to register. The Walker Art Center is also there, a great place for design, art, and new media exploration.

Iraq latest: At-a-glance
BBC News Online charts the latest developments in the Iraq conflict.
[All times GMT and approximate]
Monday, 14 April
1800: The entire contents of Iraq's national library and archives are reported to have been burned down, destroying priceless records of the country's history.

It's lucky the Sumerians used clay, not papyrus.

We all have been witness to the explosion of typographic form since the birth of the Mac, what Robin Kinross called "as profound as any in the course of [typography?s] 550-year history." There is an excellent rundown on the recent era in the wonderful British design magazine Eye (#40). The article also touches on where type is now, "quietened into a purposeful, prolific hum." (No pictures, unfortunately on Eye's website, good reason to buy the handsome print version.)

Here's a typographer's typographer - William Dwiggins. I love his Metro typeface, a great substitute for Futura, with, I think, more character. He was also a master puppet designer, as this site attests to (though it says he was from Britain, when in fact he lived in New England.

I know this guy Jonathan Hoefler in New York - he's shared studio space with a few friends of mine. He's a great typographer and a bit of a character, I suppose. He designed the font for Harper's Bazaar when the fashion magazine was redesigned by Fabien Baron in the early 1990s. Pretty young guy, largely self-educated, and has some great fonts, which you can find on his website. He was also smart enough to grab the url typography.com early on.