Type Specimens


Book Description

Type Specimens introduces readers to the history of typography and printing through a chronological visual tour of the books, posters, and ephemera designed to sell fonts to printers, publishers, and eventually graphic designers. This richly illustrated book guides design educators, advanced design students, design practitioners, and type aficionados through four centuries of visual and trade history, equipping them to contextualize the aesthetics and production of type in a way that is practical, engaging, and relevant to their practice. Fully illustrated throughout with 200 color images of type specimens and related ephemera, the book illuminates the broader history of typography and printing, showing how letterforms and their technologies have evolved over time, inspiring and guiding designers of today.




Patent Office Library Series


Book Description







Typographia


Book Description

Published in 1981: Authors of early English and American printers's manuals casually appropriated text from their predecessors. The practice, common enough not to require explanation or acknowledgement ( much less apology), was documented by Lawrence C. Wroth in 1935. Citing borrowed passages and devising a literary family tree, Wroth measured the original work of typographical writers from Moxon to De Vinne, with much more praise for them but with less for those in between. The author who, whose Typographia is reprinted here, was found to be the worst and boldest of offenders.










Bibliopegia


Book Description

Originally published in 1938, Arnett's Bibliopegia was one of the first manuals of bookbinding to be published in Britain, and is both more significant than the Cowie manual before it, and illustrated. Bibliopegia appeared at a time of immense changes in the structure of the trade which were brought about by the introduction of new techniques and equipment, and this in turn was precipitated by the rapid evolution of industry and society in general. This book provides an interesting insight into early nineteenth-century English binding practices.