D.B. Updike’s Printing Types online

Kent Lew

For those type drawers who have not otherwise already heard about this amazing resource elsewhere, I thought I’d share this here.

Nicholas Rougeux, a very talented designer and data artist, has unveiled an online version of Daniel Berkeley Updike’s classic Printing Types: Their History, Forms & Use.

https://www.c82.net/printing-types/

This is *so* much more than just an online transcription. Instead of illustrating Updike’s examples with scans of reproductions from the book, Nicholas has tracked down literally hundreds of high-quality images of the actual specimens & books from online collections & archives and used those originals in place of Updike’s reproductions. Incredible.

Of even greater value, in my opinion: for many of the instances where Updike references additional works but did not provide any illustration (for practical reasons, no doubt), Nicholas has also tracked down those examples in online collections and provided supplemental links. A real service! and a labor of love.

I have a feeling I am going to be turning more often to this version, rather than turning around and reaching for the original volumes on my book shelf now. 

Go check it out.

Kent Lew

And the icing on the cake is that Nicholas uses Matthew Carter’s digital version of Monticello, which was Linotype’s revival of the Binny & Ronaldson Pica Roman that Updike used in the originals (which printers knew at that time as “Oxford”). 

Perfect! 😙👌

John Savard

Ah. This is interesting because of the new features in his online version. Since I was aware the book was available on the Internet Archive, at first I was wondering why this was news, but I understand now.

James Puckett

This is brilliant.

Mark Simonson

Sounds wonderful, but the site’s not loading for me. I guess I’ll check later.