The accessibility and democratization of typography – thanks to computer technology – have permitted virtually everyone to not only select but create their own letterforms. This has fostered a more informed public and instilled a growing appreciation for aesthetic judgments in graphic design. Letter Perfect: The Art of Modernist Typography 1896-1953 documents an important episode of typographic design through the collection of The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Tracing the progression of innovative typography from the turn of the nineteenth century to the 1950s, the letterforms reflect the tremendous upheaval generated by the avant-garde in all the arts. Illustrated in full color are eighty paperworks, the earliest a William Morris book printed in 1896 and the latest, a Marcel Duchamp poster that he designed for his New York City one-man exhibition in 1953. An annotated profile accompanies each work, placing it in context with the period. This collection documents advances made in a series of modernist movements, from Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Dadaism, DeStijl, and Russian constructivism thorough the Bauhaus. Artists as William Morris, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frank Lloyd Wright, El Lissitsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Marcel Duchamp, and Moholy-Nagy are well represented.