A directory of type foundry catalogs available online

Stephen Coles

This week I opened the Typographica Library, a digital bookshelf of type and lettering resources to aid research and selection. The most complete “shelf” thus far is a compilation of about 250 digitized specimen books, primarily the main catalogs from makers of metal & wood type. For years, I accessed these books via an unwieldy pile of bookmarks, downloads, and repetitive searches. As far as I know, there is no central register for digitized specimens. This DB attempts to fill that gap. 

More metadata is under the hood, like country, page count, image quality rating, historical notes, as well as images of covers, title pages, and selected interior pages. Eventually we’ll get it all on the shelf so you can filter and sort. For now, it’s a list by foundry and date. I hope you find it useful, and I welcome your corrections and additions!

Helmut Wollmersdorfer

Thanks for the great work.

There are some I didn't know before.

Unfortunately the Breitkopf one doesn't download from uni-rostok.de. I will send them a mail.

John Nolan

Wow! Nice. Thanks.

Helmut Wollmersdorfer

uni-rostock.de reacted quickly and repaired the download problem.

The specimen

Proben der Schriften in der Breitkopfischen Schriftgießerey zu Leipzig

[Leipzig]: [Breitkopf], 1787

http://purl.uni-rostock.de/rosdok/ppn1697315224

documents a milestone in German typography.