Fine Specimens: a Kickstarter campaign to fund a book on specimens from independent printing foundries

Elliot Jay Stocks is a well-known name in contemporary typography. Designer, former co-founder and creative director of 8 Faces (2010-2014), a magazine dedicated to type design and lettering, Stocks was also creative director of Typekit (Adobe’s font library, now known as Adobe Fonts), creator of the platform FontsKnowledge of Google, author of the book Universal Principles of Typography and, among many other collaborations in the typographic and design fields, he also finds time to make electronic music and run his own label.

Evidently very skilled in managing the delicate balance between work and social and family life (a theme very dear to Stocks, who in fact dedicated another magazine to him, Lagomcreated together with his wife Samantha and released between 2014 and 2019), the British designer has recently embarked on a new editorial project: a book, which he imagines as the first of a long series.

Presented on Kickstarter through a fundraising campaign, the publication is titled End Specimens and is proposed as a collection of the most interesting “specimen” that contemporary typographic foundries create to accompany the release of their typefaces and show their potential, their characteristics, their “flavor”.
“These specimens can take the form of printed books, graphics for font retailers, or social media posts. But too often they are lost in the continuous flow of information we encounter every day. And that’s crazy, because the graphics on the specimens are as beautiful as the typefaces themselves!» explains Stocks, who for the book decided to focus attention on independent realities in the world of typography. Among those selected so far (but others will come), there are several old acquaintances of Frizzifrizzi: Grilli Type, Frere-Jones Type, Type Together, Typotheque and the Florentine foundry Zetafonts.

All specimens included in the volume will be recent, released within the last year or so. Precisely for this reason, if the fundraising is successful, Stocks is already thinking about potential annual releases — «Do you want to stay updated on current typographic trends?» asks the designer, «End Specimens it could be the annual reference book for you and your colleagues.”
If between now and June 13th – the deadline to finance the production of this publication – the project manages to raise the necessary amount, the release is scheduled for the end of 2024.