All Things Letters
All Things Letters

Lettering, Typography & Type Design

Resources and Inspiration

Websites

Lettering

Type Cooker
recipes for drawing letters

Lettering How To
a series of how to blogposts by Lukas Horn (in German)

Fonts & Typography

Independent Type Foundries
buy fonts directly from the designers

Future Fonts
invest early on in tomorrow’s fonts

Fonts in use
find use cases of contemporary and historic fonts

What the Font
identify fonts by uploading images

Type History

Hamilton Woodtype Museum
everything about woodtype and letterpress printing

Tuscan Letters
Teresita Schultz tells an entertaining story about terminal bifurcation 

Ralf Hermanns Schriftlisten
illustrated lists of fonts sorted by decade and subject (in German)

Special Subjects

A visual overview (in German) about capital forms of the letter ß by Christoph Koeberlin

A detailed essay (in German) about the capital letter ß by Ralf Herrmann, with lots of examples of different ẞ-shapes

Ampersand-Love
dozens of different Ampersands

In Defense of Papyrus
a blog article 

Font Fun

Fonts hanging out
three short videos by Elle Cordova

Papyrus
Saturday Night Live with Ryan Gosling

Books

Typography

Kai Büschl, Oliver Linke
Schrift. Wahl und Mischung
Rheinwerk Verlag, Bonn, 2021

Patrick Marc Sommer, Natalie Gaspar
Das ABC der Typografie
Grundlagen, Definitionen, Praxisanwendung
Rheinwerk Verlag, Bonn, 2020

Cyrus Highsmith
Inside Paragraphs
Typographic Fundamentals
Princeton Architectural Press, 2nd ed. 2020

Friedrich Forssman, Ralf de Jong
Detailtypografie
Nachschlagewerk für alle Fragen zu Schrift und Satz
Verlag Hermann Schmidt, Mainz, 5th ed. 2014

Type History

Nicolete Gray
A History of Lettering
Creative Experiment and Letter Identity
Godine, Boston, 1986

Albert Kapr
Deutsche Schriftkunst
Verlag der Kunst, Dresden, 2nd ed. 1959

Paul McNeil
The Visual History of Type
Laurence King Publishing, London, 2017

Type-Design

Chris Campe, Ulrike Rausch
Making Fonts!
A Comprehensive Guide to Professional Type-Design
Verlag Hermann Schmidt, Mainz, 2019

Karen Cheng
Designing Type
Laurence King Publishing, London, 2nd ed. 2020

Lettering

Chris Campe
Handbuch Handlettering
Eigene Buchstaben & illustrative Schrift gestalten
Haupt Verlag, Bern, 2017

Chris Campe
Praxisbuch Brushlettering
Schritt für Schritt von den Grundlagen zum eigenen Stil
mitp Verlag, Köln, 2019

Ken Barber
House Industries Lettering Manual
Watson-Guptill, New York, 2020

Ivan Castro
The ABC of Custom Lettering
A Practical Guide to Drawing Letters
Korero Press, London, 2016

Walter Schenk
Die Schriften des Malers
Fachbuchverlag Dr. Pfanneberg Gießen, 1950

Calligraphy

David Harris
The Art of Calligraphy
A Practical Guide to the Skills and Techniques

Hildgard Korger
Schrift und Schreiben
Ein Fachbuch für alle, die mit dem Schreiben und Zeichnen von Schriften und ihrer Anwendung zu tun haben
Fachbuchverlag Leipzig, 7th ed. 1991

Robert Kuhn (Hg.)
Schriftgestaltung
Schriften zur Kunsterziehung, Band 22
Volk und Wissen Verlag, Berlin, 6th ed. 1979

Sheila Waters
Foundations of Calligraphy
revised ed. 2023

Stefanie Weigele
Copperplate Calligraphy
From the First Steps to Mastering Pointed Pen Calligraphy
Hoaki Books, 2024

Lettering Inspiration

Libraries, Archives, Museums

The The digital collection of the Newberry Library in Chicago includes over 80,000 items.

The klingspor type archive features many objects from the museum of the former Klingspor type foundry in Offenbach.

The online archive of the Letterform Archive in San Francisco offers lots of great material. The blog articles are also worth exploring.

Other Sources of Inspiration

Flea Markets

Flea markets and thrift stores are great places to find beautiful old packaging. There's nothing like seeing type in context on a three-dimensional object.

eBay

Sometimes, photos of vintage packaging and printed matter are enough—and you can often find them on eBay.

Old Books

Type specimens from the 1920s, instructional books from the 1950s, or packaging design collections from the 1980s aren’t just visually inspiring, they also convey the spirit of their time. Look for them in antiquarian bookstores, on eBay, or at flea markets.

Search Words

Asemic Writing

abstract writing with no semantic content

Wood Type

large letters made of wood, used for poster printing in the American tradition

Calligraffiti
a blend of calligraphy and graffiti, often, the letterforms dissolve into abstract patterns
Interlock-Lettering

interwoven or nested letterforms in the style of Ed Benguiat, Ivan Castro, or Francis Chouquet

Artists

Merle Michaelis

Juergen Vercaemst

Tania Mouraud

Kay Rosen

Shantell Martin

Cyrus Highsmith

 

Lettering, Typography & Type Design

Resources and Inspiration

Websites

Lettering

Type Cooker
recipes for drawing letters

Lettering How To
a series of how to blogposts by Lukas Horn (in German)

Fonts & Typography

Independent Type Foundries
buy fonts directly from the designers

Future Fonts
invest early on in tomorrow’s fonts

Fonts in use
find use cases of contemporary and historic fonts

What the Font
identify fonts by uploading images

Type History

Hamilton Woodtype Museum
everything about woodtype and letterpress printing

Tuscan Letters
Teresita Schultz tells an entertaining story about terminal bifurcation 

Ralf Hermanns Schriftlisten
illustrated lists of fonts sorted by decade and subject (in German)

Special Subjects

A visual overview (in German) about capital forms of the letter ß by Christoph Koeberlin

A detailed essay (in German) about the capital letter ß by Ralf Herrmann, with lots of examples of different ẞ-shapes

Ampersand-Love
dozens of different Ampersands

In Defense of Papyrus
a blog article 

Font Fun

Fonts hanging out
three short videos by Elle Cordova

Papyrus
Saturday Night Live with Ryan Gosling

Books

Typography

Kai Büschl, Oliver Linke
Schrift. Wahl und Mischung
Rheinwerk Verlag, Bonn, 2021

Patrick Marc Sommer, Natalie Gaspar
Das ABC der Typografie
Grundlagen, Definitionen, Praxisanwendung
Rheinwerk Verlag, Bonn, 2020

Cyrus Highsmith
Inside Paragraphs
Typographic Fundamentals
Princeton Architectural Press, 2nd ed. 2020

Friedrich Forssman, Ralf de Jong
Detailtypografie
Nachschlagewerk für alle Fragen zu Schrift und Satz
Verlag Hermann Schmidt, Mainz, 5th ed. 2014

Type History

Nicolete Gray
A History of Lettering
Creative Experiment and Letter Identity
Godine, Boston, 1986

Albert Kapr
Deutsche Schriftkunst
Verlag der Kunst, Dresden, 2nd ed. 1959

Paul McNeil
The Visual History of Type
Laurence King Publishing, London, 2017

Type-Design

Chris Campe, Ulrike Rausch
Making Fonts!
A Comprehensive Guide to Professional Type-Design
Verlag Hermann Schmidt, Mainz, 2019

Karen Cheng
Designing Type
Laurence King Publishing, London, 2nd ed. 2020

Lettering

Chris Campe
Handbuch Handlettering
Eigene Buchstaben & illustrative Schrift gestalten
Haupt Verlag, Bern, 2017

Chris Campe
Praxisbuch Brushlettering
Schritt für Schritt von den Grundlagen zum eigenen Stil
mitp Verlag, Köln, 2019

Ken Barber
House Industries Lettering Manual
Watson-Guptill, New York, 2020

Ivan Castro
The ABC of Custom Lettering
A Practical Guide to Drawing Letters
Korero Press, London, 2016

Walter Schenk
Die Schriften des Malers
Fachbuchverlag Dr. Pfanneberg Gießen, 1950

Lettering Inspiration

Libraries, Archives, Museums

The The digital collection of the Newberry Library in Chicago includes over 80,000 items.

The klingspor type archive features many objects from the museum of the former Klingspor type foundry in Offenbach.

The online archive of the Letterform Archive in San Francisco offers lots of great material. The blog articles are also worth exploring.