Typographers of the Special Collections

Have you ever wondered where the font you are reading right now originated? How Comic Sans MS is so different to Arial? Typography, the art of designing, arranging and spacing letters, owes much of its advancement to the handpress era, and the names now only recognisable to many of us from the fonts we use were actually type designers, e.g: Claude Garamond (-1561) or Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813). This week, why not take a break from your studies to view John Milton’s Paradise regain’d, which was printed by John Baskerville (Birmingham, 1759) using the typeface he invented just two years beforehand.

If you would like to view/ consult this item, please submit an online request or contact the staff of the Special Collections Reading Room in the Hardiman Research Building at specialcollections@nuigalway.ie