1923 American Type Founders Specimen Book

My pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and time man­age­ment for the day were just dealt a crush­ing blow. Sevanti Letterpress dig­i­tized an entire copy of the 1148-page tome that is the 1923 American Type Founders Specimen Book. Then released high-resolution PDFs of the mas­sive work for free.

So much type. So many great lay­outs and exam­ples of type in use. So many orna­ments. So many great quotes. So hard to pick pieces to high­light. Just check out the whole thing.

After all is said and done, the print­er’s work is judged chiefly by the type faces used in it. A good type face may make poor paper and cheap inks pass­able, but the best qual­i­ties of papers and of inks are inca­pable of giv­ing even a sem­blance of qual­i­ty to print­ing exe­cut­ed with type faces of infe­ri­or designs.

- American Type Founders Specimen Book (1923)