LL Catalogue is a contemporary update of a 19th century serif font of Scottish origin. Initially copied from an old edition of Gulliver’s Travels by designers M/M (Paris) in 2002, and first used for their redesign of French Vogue in 2003, it has since been redrawn from scratch and expanded, following research into its origins and history.

The typeface originated from a 1858 design by Alexander Phemister for renowned foundry Miller & Richard, with offices in Edinburgh and London. The technical possibilities and restrictions of the time determined the conspicuously upright and bold verticals of the letters as well as their almost clunky serifs. The extremely straight and robust typeface allowed for an accelerated printing process, more economical production, and more efficient mass distribution in the age of Manchester capitalism. The typeface served as a prototypical model of the Bookman typefaces, which became very popular at the turn of the 20th century stayed in favour right up to the digital era.

When Phemister emigrated to the US, in 1861, he took his technique and his typefaces with him, and soon enough, various versions of this original design flooded the market. Serving a growing population of European and American readers and a rising demand for novels and ‘news’, these fonts emerged as symptom of a new culture of mass education and entertainment.

Today, the particularities of such historical letterforms appear both exceptionally characterful and unusually beautiful. To capture the original matrices, we had new hot metal types moulded, and our resultant prints provided the basis for a digital redrawing that honoured the imperfections and oddities of the metal original. At the same time, the transition to pixels allowed for a fastidious re-appraisal of the shapes and slight adjustments for optical improvement.

Nazareno Crea explored three different serif styles for the font, paying homage to some of the versions that spread following the original design’s success. In the end, we opted for the original one to be published only, to keep the typeface’s character clearly defined. We also added small caps, a generous selection of special glyphs and, to make it more versatile, we chose to expand the font’s range with two new weights, Light and Bold. Like its historical predecessors, LL Catalogue is a jobbing font for copious amounts of text, ideally suited for uses between 8 and 16 point. Providing both excellent readability and distinctive character, it is no surprise that the family has found much success with editorial designers worldwide.

2025 Update: The LL Catalogue family has recently been overhauled to bring in line with current requirements, and in order to make it into a variable font without losing any of its quirkyness and authentic character. Slight formal issues with some characters were fixed, character set was expanded to meet demands, and the spacing and kerning has been optimised. New versions are issued in October 2025 in the shop, and variable font files are available on request.