Production Type knows how to put together a good typeface specimen

It seems to me that half the job when you work at a type foundry is finding the best way to showcase your wares. In an industry now bubbling with interactive websites, weird apps and even the occasional trailer, typeface specimens are an old fashioned means, but as Paris-based digital foundry Production Type proves, they’re often the best.

We received this neat little booklet this week with love from Paris, and it’s a model example of how to show off what you do – in this case, Production Type’s new interpretation of the Breite Halbfette Grotesk, named Proto Grotesk – while channelling as much of the foundry’s own personality into 30 odd pages as possible. Including an essay by historian Sébastien Morlighem about the origins of the word Grotesk alongside various different weights and full character sets, we can conclude that we like the old-fashioned way just fine.