A curated list of digital specimens
of the highest quality. Updated daily.

Cofo Sans Mono

Contrast Foundry's specimens walk that fine line between useful and unconventional really well. The focussing on each side of the specimen is particularly interesting.

Published on 17 Aug 2021

MD Nichrome

The microsite for Nichrome is so well done. From the branding and accompanying video, to the stacked example phrases. The opentype feature layout is also a useful addition to clearly see the built-in features such as alternates and case-sensitive forms.

Published on 17 Aug 2021

ES Allianz

This is a clever layout from Extraset for their latest release, Allianz. Using borderless tiled animations and static graphics interesting combinations of glyphs and features the specimen builds into a tapestry. This simple but effective technique adds an added dimention to evaluating the typeface.

Published on 16 Aug 2021

Bau Mono

The designs for the carousel that opens the specimen for Bau Mono are refreshing, but hidden away. The specimen would be really improved by having them as stacked panels. The typetesters are good, providing multi-lingual defaults and options for different columns.

Published on 08 Aug 2021

Rustica

Efficient and elegance is the name of the game with this specimen from TipoType. Simple, stacked typetesters, one or two 'in context' images. And then compiling all of the features, glyphs, and language support into a useful tabbed component at the bottom of ther specimen.

Published on 08 Aug 2021

Organic Pro

A fairly standard specimen from Positype, but it's the glyph table that is of interest. Each preview of a glyph is shown with two other characters either side and is overlaid with lines for cap height, x-height and baseline. This is very useful to see glyphs in context with others.

Published on 08 Aug 2021

Avantt

This specimen for Avantt reeks of modernist design values combined with a wilful disregard for digital type specimen conventions. And it's brilliant as a result. Refreshing content. Interesting branding.

Published on 05 Aug 2021

Array

Array is a characterful mono typeface. A response to the design brief of 'can a typeface work for coding and regular text?'. Array is a combination of the two. The specimen neatly demonstrates the font and its capabilities, but is lacking showing it in an actual coding environment.

Published on 03 Aug 2021

Monoflow

Monoflow is a coding font. The website goes into great detail as to what that means from a design perspective, carefully explaining the impact on readability in a coding environment.

Published on 03 Aug 2021

Sebenta

Great looking monochrome colour palette for this striking specimen for Sebenta. Big, full width type displayed in stacked layouts of components with text long and short, large and small.

Published on 02 Aug 2021

Heliotrope

A catalogue specimen, but a sensitive reimagining of a printed specimen to digial form. More traditional in its approach, the specimen leaves no stone unturned; it is comprehensive. A full glyph preview, download the printed PDF, and an accompanying long-form article on the history of the design.

Published on 23 Jul 2021

Goskar

Handwriting fonts can be difficult to produce good specimens for. Especially those which have inbuilt features such as auto-ligatures and interesting alternates to mimic the inconsistency and quirks of human-made lettering. This specimen for Goskar does a good job at highlighting those features on a backdrop of a useful specimen.

Published on 23 Jul 2021