Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Letterforms surround us: inscriptions or names on buildings, directional signs for road networks, and signs within and around buildings. This book focuses on the letterforms and typography found in public places that help us to navigate towns, cities, and countrysides and that contribute to a sense of place. Featuring 700 color images of examples from around the world, it discusses the function and execution of signage. Part resource, part celebration, it brings together material that is of key interest to graphic designers, lettering artists, architects, and all those who are concerned with how towns and cities look and function.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 7)
• Signs to direct and instruct (p. 12)
• Informatory signs: milestones in Britain (p. 16)
• Kilometre markers: Spain, France and Japan (p. 19)
• Early British road signs (p. 20)
• British 1933 and 1944 standard directional signs (p. 22)
• British motorway signs: the Anderson Committee 1962 (p. 24)
• Signs for all-purpose roads in Britain: the Worboys Report 1963 (p. 26)
• Directional signs (p. 28)
• Map-type signs (p. 29)
• Tinkering with the system (p. 30)
• International use of the Transport alphabet (p. 32)
• Bilingual road signs (p. 34)
• The US 'Interstate' type (p. 36)
• Map-type direction signs: Spain, France and Italy (p. 38)
• Michelin signs in France (p. 40)
• France after Michelin (p. 44)
• Highlighting road numbers (p. 46)
• Regulatory signs: the Geneva protocol 1949 (p. 47)
• Signs which warn (p. 48)
• Signs which prohibit (p. 52)
• Signs which instruct (p. 54)
• Signs with non-standard shapes (p. 56)
• Adaptations & expansion (p. 57)
• Other standards: the US diamond pattern (p. 58)
• Variations on a theme: arrows (p. 60)
• Using the road (p. 62)
• Signs for pedestrians: heritage & modernity (p. 66)
• Rural simplicity (p. 68)
• Over-design (p. 70)
• Mapping urban spaces (p. 72)
• Signs for travel networks: bus stops (p. 74)
• Railways: identifying stations (p. 78)
• Variety & identity, London's Underground (p. 80)
• Ambience & splendour (p. 82)
• Old-fashioned reliability (p. 84)
• Legibility, arrows and pictograms (p. 86)
• Airports (p. 88)
• Railways & airports: multilingual signs (p. 89)
• Railways & airports: keeping up to date (p. 93)
• Naming places and defining spaces (p. 96)
• Identifying locations: street names, individuality & standardization (p. 104)
• Materials & letterforms (p. 106)
• Physical presence (p. 110)
• Bilingual signs (p. 112)
• A dog marking its territory (p. 113)
• Boundary markers (p. 114)
• Names for towns and villages: the official and the home-made (p. 115)
• Identifying and enlivening buildings: architectural (permanent) and fascia (temporary) lettering (p. 118)
• Architectural lettering: considerations of letterform, position, scale and material (p. 120)
• Italy, from the Republic to the Renaissance (p. 122)
• Civic and industrial uses (p. 124)
• The grand gesture and humble details (p. 126)
• Success & failure (p. 128)
• Success & failure, the British Library (p. 130)
• Josep Maria Subirachs in Barcelona (p. 131)
• Barcelona New Town Hall and related work (p. 132)
• At Gaudi's Sagrada Familia (p. 134)
• Fascia lettering (p. 136)
• Materials & techniques: tiles, faience, mosaic and modular units (p. 138)
• Metal (p. 140)
• Ceramics, wood and paint (p. 142)
• Silhouette (p. 144)
• Light (p. 145)
• Numbers (p. 146)
• Enlivening spaces (p. 148)
• Stephen Raw and Ralph Beyer (p. 152)
• Ralph Beyer (p. 154)
• Artists & letters: Joan Brossa, Velodrom d'Horta (p. 156)
• Barcino and other works (p. 158)
• Maarten de Reus, Groen in Carnisselande (p. 160)
• Recording: triumphalism, Rome, empire and dictatorship (p. 162)
• Rome under Mussolini (p. 164)
• Triumphalism & reflection (p. 168)
• Commemoration (p. 170)
• Incidentals: recording, instructing, advertising (p. 172)
• Letters as identity, SPQR (p. 177)
• Dates & makers (p. 178)
• Twelve pictures which wouldn't fit anywhere else (p. 180)
• Endmatter: glossaries (p. 184)
• Further reading (p. 187)
• Index (p. 188)
• Photographic credits / acknowledgements (p. 192)