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.

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.