Optima: The Five Kingdoms of Life
Type Specimen Book
Challenge
Design a type specimen book displaying the five typefaces in the Optima type family. Optima Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, and ExtraBlack must be used in a way that displays their real life uses. The type specimen book must include poems that reflect the nature of the typeface.
Process
The process included researching what the typeface is commonly used for, imagery to accompany the typeface, and a poet’s poems that would suit the typeface.
Result
A type specimen book that beautifully displays the uses of the Optima typeface through biology’s five kingdoms of life: Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia. By making use of imagery specific to each kingdom, each of the five typefaces in the Optima type family are displayed alongside anatomical elements of type.
