Any designer working in the last quarter of the 20th century seems to have more than a passing sense of loss at the thought that there is no more magazine called U&lc. I recall my brother talking about this magazine called "You and Elsie" and thinking what a weird name for a design magazine. Then seeing the error in my phonetic title mixup and not being any more enlightened until someone explained "it means Upper and lower case". Ah! That introduction stuck with me, but what also stuck was that there was some great content in each oversized issue. A few years ago, I was presented with the proverbial pile of yellowing newsprint issues of U&LC (most of which I never had owned previously) They are still impossible to store or display in any conventional or convenient manner, but the older they get, the more endearing they are. The magazine was created as vehicle for helping to promote new ITC fonts, but the content made the fact that each issue was a promotion for selling fonts secondary and not at all unwelcome. While "type" was the focus of U&lc, the design was bold and trend setting and rarely predictable.
The new book edited by the last U&lc editor John Berry features introductory essays by Berry, Joyce Rutter Kaye, Rhonda Rubinstein and Steven Heller. The bulk of the book includes facsimile pages of some highlight designs/articles (reduced in size, but in all of their unretouched high acid content newsprint glory and displayed as if they were the actual magazine splayed with edges of the rest of the issue in sight). Most of the select articles are include in their entirety (one unfortunately incomplete article features Justin Howes' founders Caslon). There is an issue by issue cover image and content listing (a full cross referenced index would have been handy for that unwieldy pile of back issues) as well as a designers listing which boasts an impressive line-up.
This oversized book captures just enough of the essence of actual periodicals to make you dig out the unwieldy pile of U&lcs (if just to finish the Caslon article) and then figure our where to store them again so you don't forget about them...and do it soon because that crumbly newsprint won't last much longer! Thankfully the book is bound and printed with high quality materials and will outlive all of us. Short of having every back issue reprinted in archival paper, this book serves well as a condensed time capsule for the 25 years of U&lc.

-Richard Kegler