Type specimens

Specimen booklet for States, designed by Anton Koovit and published by Fatype, 2025. The A4-sized specimen booklet comprises 16 pages and was designed by Federico Barbon Studio. In addition to typeface samples, it includes a short piece by yours truly on the rise and fall of early grotesque gothics.

States is shown throughout the specimen in a single Medium weight, in both a standard and a rounded version. Meanwhile, the family has been expanded to seven weights and italic versions for both styles.

https://fatype.com/typefaces/states

#typespecimen #fatype #antonkoovit #yassinbaggar #federicobarbon #matthijssluiter #typehistory #spotcolors

GT Canon, the latest release by Grilli Type (January 2026), was designed as a counterpart to their GT Standard, and aims to be “our answer to what our digital times require of a serif today.” The collection consists of a proportional type collection in five widths, each in seven weights, three optical sizes and italics, plus a monospaced counterpart in seven weights and italics (no optical sizes).

Newsprint specimen, 35×51cm , 8 sheets. Typeface design by Noël Leu, Reto Moser, Lorenzo Poderini and Katja Schimmel. Design credits for specimen, micro site and overall campaign: Patrick Savolainen, Jules Janssen, Marco Land, Sasha Fominskaya and Jacob Heftmann.

#typespecimen #grillitype #gtcanon #newsprint #typeseries #monospaced

Catalogue Typographique Général 2026 by Marseille-based foundry @formagari@typo.social , printed in three spot colors, measuring 17×24cm. The specimen booklet features the foundry’s current type collection (including recent releases Sancy and Maxisud by Emmanuel Besse @embes@typo.social ) plus sneak previews of planned releases like Scenery by @lucaslebihan@typo.social .

#typespecimen #Formagari #FrenchType #LucasLeBihan #EmmanuelBesse #marseille

“A to Z with Bisel”, a type specimen booklet for Bisel, released by The Designers Foundry 2023. The cardboard booklet (15×15cm, self-cover, rounded corners) shows one noun for each letter of the Latin alphabet on its 13 spreads, each set in Capitalised Bisel in a matching width, paired with a photograph of each word. The pairs range from natural (Aloë Vera, Barnacle, Passionfruit) to industrial (Gloves, Vacuum and Yacht).

#thedesignersfoundry #fasestudio #bisel #typespecimen

Specimen for Reptil (2025), a design by Ethan Nakache and Raphaël de la Morinerie, lossely based on Bob Newman’s Turtle typeface (1971). Reptil is available from The Designers Foundry and from Writtenshape Foundry. The specimen consists of 3d-printed(?) fridge magnets and a folded two color poster, printed in Paris by Quintal Atelier.

#typespecimen #writtenshapefoundry #thedesignersfoundry #ethannakache #raphaeldelamorinerie #risoprinted #quintal #fridgemagnets

Specimen booklet (8 pages, A5 format) for Baustraße by Michele Galuzzo and Franziska Weitgruber, aka Fantasia Type. I spotted this booklet in a free book box in the neighbourhood, and as I can barely read Italian, I have little idea about the background to this publication, dated November 2024.

The cover reads ‘Dalla “Haus” alla “Straße”’ / “L’alfabeto universale di Herbert Bayer e l’universo di alfabeti “Bauhaus style” tra gli anni Sessanta e Novanta”. In short: a lecture booklet?

Bonus points for the font, making a bold attempt at being an ideal typeface for both headlines and body text.

#typespecimen #fantasiatype #michelegaluzzo #franziskaweitgruber #baustraße #bauhaus #herbertbayer

“Romain du Roi was not widely released for general use, reinforcing its role as a symbol of royal exclusivity.” The elusiveness of the original lends extra sparkle to the revival’s accessibility – at least that’s what seems to be going on here. Interesting.

A2 format specimen poster for Romain du Roi, Ian Party’s version of a famous piece of design history, released in June 2025 through his Newglyph foundry. Printed on one side only, in black and silver, folded to A4 format.

#typespecimen #romainduroi #leromain #ianparty

Aeonik Soft was designed by Mark Bloom and released by his foundry CoType in January 2026. Where most specimens on my desk come with a short personal note, or no note at all, this one was sent out to all receivers with a letter explaining the rationale for adding a soft counterpart to their successful Aeonik type collection: “(...) Aeonik Soft softens those edges to create a more approachable tone without losing structure”.

#CoType #MarkBloom #Aeonik #Typespecimen #stickers

Newsprint specimen for Arizona, highlighting the type family’s new condensed weight range by showcasing it in a photoshoot with artist horsegiirL.

Ciner newspaper format (35x50cm) / five sheets 50x70cm, each showing a pose by horsegiirL with a narrow A from Arizona as a shadow. Most back sides of these posters show the exact same text, (credits) set in a different style of Arizona.

Arizona was designed by Elias Hanzer; campaign by Dinamo and Veyres.

The specimen is available from the foundry’s hardware store: https://abcdinamo.com/hardware/arizona-horsegiirl

#typespecimen #dinamo #eliashanzer #horsegiirL #newsprint #veyres