I was fascinated with dictionaries as a child. Not just the traditional ones, full of obscure words and mysterious meanings, but the great dictionaries of history, the illustrated medieval texts and secret alchemical treatises. A dictionary is as much a celebration of type as it is a stage for words and meaning. Letters and typography have their own magic, and as I started planning my own book, I wanted to bring that power to life in a new way.

In the digital age, we are all consumers of design. Every screen we look at, every device we interact with, every message or notification has all at some point been considered, tested and designed. And yet, even as we become more data driven, great design resists automation. We can tell the difference between an object or an image rendered by algorithm and one created by an artist. But will that always be the case?

Some of us are lucky enough to do work that we love, but most of us work because we must. And while we like to imagine that we work to live, in fact we end up spending much of our lives at work. Curiously, that’s only part of the problem. 

In some ways, companies face a similar challenge. Senior leaders like to imagine that they are in charge of all the levers of change. When their CEO announces a big new strategy to the market, they work with their teams to put an execution plan in place. But after a few months it often becomes apparent that the promised transformation is not going according to plan. Delays, re-scheduled meetings, excuses—but secretly, no one at the organisation is really surprised.