Letters are beautiful. From specimens of chromatic woodtype to the groovy letter people and 16th Century writing templates typography and calligraphy turn visual language into something beautiful. Beginning in the early 20th Century, the Ludlow Typograph Company (1906 to late 1980s) gave its sales staff specimen books to advertise fonts and ornaments that could be printed on its Ludlow Typograph, a hot metal typesetting system used in letterpress printing for large-type material such as newspaper headlines or posters. Produced in four editions (A, B, C and D) as “Some Ludlow Typefaces”, these pages are from issue ‘D’, most likely published between 1940 and 1958. These pages of tight design are a form of visual data, in which the everyday is presented in an innovative and engaging way. Good typography ensures that the all the complexities and contractions of human thought and expression are not replaced by the conformity of the industrial machine.