A textbook example of “one typeface, one size”, featuring Walbaum. A Sort of Life is the first volume of the “long-awaited” autobiography by British novelist Graham Greene. First published in hardback by The Bodley Head in 1971, this is the paperback edition published as Penguin Books 3495 in 1972, with a cover design by Derek Birdsall.

A series of stamps designed by Derek Birdsall in 2004 for the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Society of Arts. The only typeface used here that isn’t quintessentially British is Typo Upright, a 1905 American Type Founders revival of French script styles.

“For more years than he cares to remember, Birdsall has remained faithful to no more than a dozen typefaces: Bell, Bodoni and Eric Gill's Sans, Joanna and Modern among them. He has experimented with more contemporary faces, he says, but finds them usually flawed, so sticks with the old workhorses, all of which have strong personalities. 
Indeed, Birdsall selected Gill Sans, with its 'wonderful italic', for his much-revered redesign of the Church of England's Common Worship prayer book in 2000. He felt so strongly about the typeface that he has said he would not have done the job if the client hadn't accepted it.”

— Mike Dempsey for Design Week, July 2002