In February 2010 New Zealand graphic designer Tana Mitchell, then resident in Berlin, discovered an expansive collection of letterpress type in the basement of the Druckwerkstatt im Kulturwerk des BBK. Dusty, neglected and mostly unused, the BBK letterpress type collection consists of a vast and incomprehensible collection of metal and wooden letterpress type. Often unlabeled and incomplete, the collection comprised various fonts, from 6point and up, with a range of decorative & display typefaces. The Druckwerkstatt im Kulturwerk des BBK has a fully functioning printing press and with this Mitchell began printing, accounting for and making sense of the collection, with her own somewhat arbitrary methodology. Likening her activity to that of an entomologist in the field, the BBK typographic collection became the habitat from which Mitchell gathered her specimens to make her own typography collection.
 
Restricting the specimens to 18 point and above, she began with A, working alphabetically through to Z. The resulting suite of prints, each capturing a single letter in various forms, offers a visual rather than a linear logic.
In the process of making, and souveniring, Mitchell made a suite of works that is a resource for her own typographic research. The making of these works offered a way of spending time with letter forms, of having a physical connection to them, of manoeuvring them in physical space. This suite is a collection from which she is able to glean and gather typographic ideas.

Image source:
Tana Mitchell, Type Specimen: O, 2010. Courtesy of the Artist.