Hoffmanns Schriftatlas

This is one of those books we hope nobody buys. It’s beautiful, inspiring, and useful. A visual history of the Latin alphabet, it touches on inscriptions, moves on to scribal traditions, early printed letterforms, and finishes with mid-twentieth-century lettering and type design. The text is short (and in German, English, and French) but the bulk of the book is page after page of large, remarkable plates. Our favorite parts are in the back of the book: There are all sorts of examples of beautiful European lettering and types that didn’t often make it over to the US. Except for the fact that we hope nobody buys this, we can’t recommend it enough. It’s really special.

Watch us flip through another copy here »