I love variety of typographic ornament found on those books, the attention to details and the perfect clean layouts. Examples below go through 1903′s leather bound bible, featuring gothic typography, book cover’s illustration hot foil stamping, beautifully balanced page layouts to amazing front cover’s title drop cap.

Overall, a beautiful collection of historical typefaces, ornaments, icons and layout inspiration and know how.

Linotype: The Film is a feature-length documentary film centered around the Linotype typecasting machine invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886. Called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” by Thomas Edison, the Linotype revolutionized printing and society, but very few people know about the inventor or his fascinating machine.

I love it already, it both calls out for the designer in me but also the geek, who always loved machines and crazy technology. Check out the trailer and why not also support them through Kick Starter.

This great edition – first published in 1987 -reminds me in some ways to Robert Bringhurst‘s The Element of Typographic Style, but in a more straight to the point way (and maybe less in depth).

Sample chapters include the reading process, line composition and column type setting; all chapter and reflections illustrated with rich examples.

Written and designed by Jost Hochuli (graphic designer/typographer from the “modern Swiss typography”), Detail in Typography is available from Hyphen Press, Amazon, Typotheque and many other retailer and in various languages.

It uses Javascript to substitute the fonts of your website. It still might not be the best solution but it seems to work pretty well, the colymba.com blog now uses Adelle by TypeTogether for its headers.

The Tee features a big bright yellow ligature Ampersand, House Industries’ ‘landmark’ glyph, all nicely printed on a black (cotton) t-shirt.

In the package with this gorgeous piece of apparel, was the House Industries’ catalogue issue 59. This time with a purple jacket which actually match pretty closely the Cordovan colour of the Jersey Cover stock talked about previously (this might not have been such a bad guess originally…).

Also included, some cool House stickers, and a promotional foldout poster/brochure, printed 3 colours + metallic gold on 1 side and full colour + metallic gold on the inside, all on a linen textured stock. This foldout promotes the range of products inspired by the work of Alexander Girard, a designer once involve in fabric pattern to 3D design.

Grab your own tee!

In today’s mail was the new House Industries‘ typeface catalogue or ‘typographical treasure’. A beautiful 114x213mm piece of print and design. House Industries is a type foundry based in Yorklyn, DE and they use this little booklet to showcase their font collection (love the Studio Sable). This was printed with 2 colours on the cover and 2 spots (with one metallic bronze) on the inset, with the addition of a subtle layer of varnish on the cover. They mention the stock used for the cover ‘Riegel Jersey plate’, a red leather textured stock, but I could not find a manufacturer or distributor online. The closer I got was with this Jersey Cover by FiberMark. Would love to know the actual paper mill/manufacturer and any link.

One thing I love, is the smell of fresh print. Each print/paper has its own tactile signature, but also olfactory. And this one is no exception, or actually is as it smells like walnut. It has this distinct nutty smell that I think matches well the organic quality of the graphics and typeface presented. Not sure if this is done on purpose or how it happen at all.

Also needs to be mentioned, House Industries also produce beautiful design objects and cool clothing (can’t wait to get my t-shirt delivered).

Loved the variety, in texture, face, techniques… from very carefully hand carved text in stone, hand sewn calligraphic letter-forms, chaotic/damaged letter shapes, ornaments and mosaics to rusty metal modern type.

Even came across an old typographic workshop.