Inspire Me
The Online Archive
Access thousands of graphic design artifacts from anywhere in the world with our custom-built website.
The Online Archive is your access to Letterform Archive’s collection from anywhere with an internet connection. Browse a trove of digitally imaged materials — over 3,500 items and counting — by country, designer, decade, or format. The visual search shows instant results as you filter, making it easy to customize your scope of inspiration at a glance.
Each object is meticulously photographed to produce the lifelike, dimensional images. We capture the detail and texture of paper and ink, as well as the relief of letterpress or engraved printing. The web optimized images retain as much of this detail as possible, even when zooming, while remaining browsable from any device.
Once you’ve found some items you love, you can save them in sets we call “Tables”, and share them with friends and colleagues. Educators can teach type history from a Table in full-screen slideshow mode. Designers can share mood boards with their clients.
A Database Designed for Designers
Instead of relying on an existing product, we custom built the Online Archive with our community in mind. Conventional methods for cataloging fine art or architecture don’t always describe graphic design in terms familiar to people who do that kind of work, so the Archive’s librarians created a new vocabulary optimized for our collection and the most intuitive browsing experience. Learn more about the thinking and work behind the website:
What’s New
Our Blog features the latest updates about the Online Archive, including new features and objects. Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to get the scoop.
Quick Tip
Experience the Collection
Peruse our ever-growing gallery of high-quality images accessible online from anywhere. See what catches your eye and get inspired!
Join the Community
The easiest way to support the Online Archive is to become a Letterform Archive member. Join our worldwide community and get the exclusive ability to share your Tables.
Explore in Person
There is no substitute for getting to hold a rare book or designer’s original sketch in your own hands. Visit Letterform Archive in person to study items from our collection.
Highlights from the Collection
Emigre Magazine Archive
The Online Archive provides access to the complete run of the pioneering Emigre magazine, an early adopter of digital design tools, thanks to a gift of archival material from the co-founders of Emigre, Inc.
Sheaff Ephemera Collection
Richard Sheaff’s personal collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century ephemera offers thousands of colorful examples of typefaces in use from an exciting period for printing and letterform innovation.
Ross F. George Collection
The family of Ross George, sign painter and inventor of the Speedball pen, donated his drawings for original alphabets published in the Speedball textbooks, pens, showcards, and other examples of lettering which are now available in the Online Archive
Counterculture Periodicals
These periodicals produced during an explosion of DIY and independent publishing in the 60’s and 70’s imagine new ways of living and being through inventive, eye-catching design.
W. A. Dwiggins Collection
The Online Archive hosts drawings, lettering, original art for reproduction, books, book jackets, typeface proofs, and more from W. A. Dwiggins, the innovative and beloved design pioneer.
Type West Specimens
Check out the type specimens designed by students in our Type West certificate program, which draws on research in our collection to teach designers how to make original typefaces.
Tables in the Online Archive
Inspired by the tabletop tours we lead at the Archive, Online Archive Tables are a tool for collecting and arranging items for research and inspiration. Anyone with an account can make their own Tables, and members have the exclusive ability to share the Tables they make with the wider Online Archive community.
Make & Share Your Own Tables
Learn how Letterform Archive account holders can make selections of images from the Online Archive to set their own Tables.
Chronological Type History
Tables set by Letterform Archive staff teach you a visual history of the evolution of the Latin letterform, from the days of calligraphy predating the first printed books all the way through to the digital age.
Alternative Design Education
These Tables present a more unconventional approach to learning about letterforms through artist books, women designers, objects that break the Swiss Grid, and more!
An Incomplete and Ongoing Index for Emigre Magazine
Jon Sueda revisited the inspirational Emigre Magazine through the Online Archive and created this Table to highlight key terms and topics that continue to resonate with graphic design today.
Guest-Curated Tables
We invited friends of the Archive to curate Tables in the Online Archive. Explore their selections of process work, overprinting, displays of blackness, and more.
Featured Tables
Here’s a selection of some of our favorite Tables curated from the Online Archive by our collaborators and members.
Negative Space by Leila Weefur
Spell It Out by Cooper Sullivan-Marcus
Calendars Are Interesting by Murray Grigo-McMahon
Give Us a Hand by Sally Beale
Indiyeah! by Tanya George
Posters / Protest by Meaghan Dee
