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

“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

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

“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