A curated list of digital specimens
of the highest quality. Updated daily.
Panorama
An exploratory interface allows the user to navigate the design space. An imaginative use of navigational devices and layout.
Blanchard Collection
A specimen disarming in its simplicity. Just a paragraph of content simply set in the two available styles sit below a brief introduction. The digital specimen is bolstered by a comprehensive PDF, and a lengthy story of the origins, design, and development of the typeface.
Pensum Sans
A fairly standard looking specimen, but it's enriched with content of its creation written by the designer.
Balto
A visually interesting specimen that would be made so much better by being constructed with web fonts instead of rendered images. That aside, it does a good job of displaying the typeface's best features in an easily digestable format.
CoFo Sans
This is a smart looking specimen. Minimal in features, the design is horizontally split: typical specimen features on the left such as type testers, character set etc. But the right is blurred out. Until it is clicked, which reveals editorial about the typeface and designer, in addition to some fonts in use content.
Peak
Another Extraset specimen with a vintage feel about it. Leading with illustrations to explain the font's features, the specimen moves on to a comprehensive and well-designed type tester. And there's that buy button again!
Aspen
This is a fun specimen. Luwig Type's Aspen typeface can be manipulated in mocked up contexts – from billboards and shop fronts, to books and magazines.
Playtype
Big. Type. but effective. The overlaid, layered, information panel is a useful and effective addition to the layout giving the appearence the user is scrolling an actual page of a specimen, rather than a web page. Subtle depth adding a subtle perception.
Leon Sans
A geometric sans serif built using code to create animations. probably one of the better examples of kinetic typography on the web at the moment. Whilst this specimen site aims to really show what is possible, even with the simplist and most subtle animations, this typeface could be effective in many contexts.