The Solotype Catalog of 4,147 Display Typefaces

While there are very few full-character samples shown, this book is a wonderful jaunt through typographic history and an excellent (and often hilarious) reminder of what went into the graphic arts before computers (the Solotype foundry were phototypesetters). A huge number of these fonts can be found under different names today as freeware or shareware, and it's becoming a fun winter project of mine to track down as many of these old types as I can on the Internet. Dover has a fine collection of many of Dan Solo's fonts already digitized and available for sale inexpensively, though by no means all of them.

I received my Solotype Catalog today and it was beyond anything I expected! I have worked with type for over 60 years and this is a wonderful collection of type and includes the colorful 19th Century fonts as well as recent fonts (to 1992). Special effects are well presented. This book is a must for anyone interested in type and letterforms.

Dan Solo's book has the most beutiful fonts I've seen. He has a love of typography, and this comes out not just in the quality and number of fonts, but in the manner they are presented. I did my wedding invites with these fonts, and keep looking for reasons to bring back such beautiful typefaces as Nicholas Cochin, or authentic Gold Rush era such as Smuggler, French Kate, and Lyons Egyptian.

this is a great book to get really inspired and makes to instantly want to create something beatifull with it. Only problem is to get it in your computer system (digitalize it) which takes me about one hour for most headline fonts which don't need so much car