Sebastian Fisher // Links

Design

NASA Graphics Standards Manual (1975) — the worm era; Standards Manual reprint
NYC Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual — Vignelli / Unimark International; Standards Manual reprint
Standards Manual — independent publisher reprinting classic identity systems as physical books
LogoArchive Shop — original vintage brand guidelines for sale; mid-century corporate identity programmes
Letterform Archive Online — 3,500+ digitised design artefacts, type specimens, posters, ephemera

1923 ATF Specimen Book & Catalogue (Hi-Res) — the definitive American Type Founders catalog
1912 American Specimen Book — 1,096 pages; full ATF catalog including machinery
1898 ATF Desk Book — borders, ornaments, brass rule; oldest of the ATF books
Specimen Book of Linotype Faces — Mergenthaler Linotype Company
IBM Plex Mono — IBM's open-source typeface; clean monospace specimen

Are.na — where serious design people collect references; search "brutalist typography", "xerox", "Swiss grid"
Emigre Magazine Archive — experimental typography journal; important for the intentional-ugly tradition
Monoskop — Swiss Graphic Design — scanned PDFs of Swiss poster and print design
Monoskop — Typography — Swiss typography books and design theory
TM Research Archive — Typographische Monatsblätter covers; some of the best typographic reference available
Design Is History — clean design history reference

Type: A Visual History Vol. 1 & 2 — Taschen — reprinted specimen sheets 1628–1938; not commentary
Grid Systems in Graphic Design — Müller-Brockmann — the Swiss grid bible
Typographie — Emil Ruder — Swiss modernism; reads like a technical manual
The New Typography — Jan Tschichold — rational layout principles from the 1920s
Asymmetric Typography — Jan Tschichold — practical companion to The New Typography
An Atlas of Typeforms — Sutton & Bartram — dense catalog-style type reference

Capitalist Realism — Mark Fisher — short; gives you vocabulary around media and aesthetics
Understanding Media — Marshall McLuhan — foundational for thinking and writing about media
Mythologies — Roland Barthes — short essays; usable vocabulary for describing culture and design
The Society of the Spectacle — Guy Debord — language around image and representation