Specimen

A typeface shown at work: alphabets, sizes and settings arranged to reveal its character. The portrait a font ships with.

Specimens descend from the foundry books that sold metal type: pages composed to flatter a face while honestly displaying its range, alphabets large, paragraphs at size, figures and flourishes on parade. Reading them is the fastest way to meet a typeface's temperament.

And they are designed to seduce, which is why the working rule is: admire the specimen, then make your own. Set the candidate in your actual words, at your actual sizes, on your actual background, beside its future neighbours. Many faces are magnificent in the foundry's hands and strangers in yours; the private specimen tells you which.