Akzidenz-Grotesk is a
sans-serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than seri ...
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are list of type ...
family originally released by the
Berthold Type Foundry
H. Berthold AG was one of the largest and most successful type foundries in the world for most of the modern typographic era, making the transition from foundry type to cold type successfully and only coming to dissolution in the digital type era. ...
of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
. ''german: label=none, italic=no, "Akzidenz"'' indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tickets and forms, as opposed to
fine printing, and "grotesque" was a standard name for sans-serif typefaces at the time.
Originating during the late nineteenth century, Akzidenz-Grotesk belongs to a tradition of general-purpose, unadorned sans-serif types that had become dominant in German printing during the nineteenth century. Relatively little-known for a half-century after its introduction, it achieved iconic status in the
post-war period
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
as the preferred typeface of many
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
* Swiss, North Carolina
*Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
*Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internation ...
graphic designers in what became called the
'International' or 'Swiss' design style which became popular across the
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. in the 1950s and 1960s. Its simple, neutral design has also influenced many later typefaces. It has sometimes been sold as Standard in English-speaking countries, and a variety of
digital versions have been released by Berthold and other companies.
Etymology
Akzidenz-Grotesk is often translated into English as "jobbing sans-serif", "jobbing" in the sense of "used for jobs". Both words were everyday, descriptive terms for typefaces of the time in the
German language
German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Ita ...
.
german: label=none, Akzidenz means some occasion or event (in the sense of "something that happens", not in the sense of a high-class
social event
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...
or occasion)
and was therefore used as a term for trade printing; ''Akzidenzschrift'' was by the 1870s a generic term meaning typefaces intended for these uses.
A modern German-language dictionary describes it as work such as advertisements and forms.
The origin of the word is Latin ''accidentia'', defined by
Lewis and Short
''A Latin Dictionary'' (or ''Harpers' Latin Dictionary'', often referred to as Lewis and Short or L&S) is a popular English-language lexicographical work of the Latin language, published by Harper and Brothers of New York in 1879 and printed sim ...
as "that which happens, a casual event, a chance".
Grotesque (german: link=no, Grotesk) was a standard term that had become popular in the first half of the nineteenth century for sans-serifs. It was introduced by the London type-founder
William Thorowgood
William Thorowgood (died 1877) was a British typographer and type founder.
On the death of its founder Robert Thorne in 1820, Thorowgood bought the Fann Street Foundry.
He was active in the development of Sans Serif
In typography and lette ...
as the name for sans-serifs in the specimen books of his
Fann Street Foundry
The Fann Street Foundry was a type foundry (a company that designs or distributes typefaces) that was located on Fann Street, City of London.
Establishment
In 1794, Robert Thorne (typographer), Robert Thorne (1754-1820) acquired the type foundry ...
around 1830.
The name may have reflected the "primitive" feel of sans-serifs, or their roots in archaic Greek and Roman inscriptions, and by the late nineteenth century was commonly used to mean "sans-serif", without negative implication.
Design characteristics
Like most
sans-serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than seri ...
s, Akzidenz-Grotesk is 'monoline' in structure, with all strokes of the letter of similar width. This gives a sense of simplicity and an absence of the adornment and
flourishes seen in the more decorative sans-serifs of the late nineteenth century influenced by the
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...
style. Modern type designer
Martin Majoor
Martin Majoor (born 14 October 1960) is a Dutch type designer and graphic designer. As of 2006, he had worked since 1997 in both Arnhem, Netherlands, and Warsaw, Poland.
Biography Early life
Majoor was born in 1960 in the town of Baarn, in th ...
has described the general design of Akzidenz-Grotesk and its ancestors as similar in letterforms to the
Didone serif fonts that were standard printing types in the nineteenth century, such as
Didot Didot may refer to:
* Didot family, family of French printers, punch-cutters and publishers that flourished mainly in the 18th century
* Didot (typeface)
Didot is a group of typefaces. The word/name Didot came from the famous French printing and ...
,
Walbaum Walbaum is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Johann Julius Walbaum (1724–1799), German physician, naturalist and taxonomist
* Johannes Walbaum (born 1987), German footballer
* Justus Erich Walbaum (1768-1837), German typ ...
and their followers.
This is most visible in the quite folded-up
apertures
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane.
An opt ...
of letters such as ‘a’ and ‘c’.
The capitals of Akzidenz-Grotesk are wide and relatively uniform in width.
The 'g' of Akzidenz-Grotesk is a 'single-storey' design, like in many other
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
sans-serifs, but unlike the double-storey 'g' found in most serif faces and in many of the earliest sans-serifs that had a lower-case; sans-serif types first appeared in London, but became popular in Germany from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.
Walter Tracy
Walter Valentine Tracy RDI (14 February 1914 – 28 April 1995) was an English type designer, typographer and writer.
Biography
Walter Tracy was born in Islington, London and attended Shoreditch Secondary school. At the age of fourteen he wa ...
describes this style of 'g' as a common feature in German sans-serifs of the period and apparently influenced by the tradition of
blackletter
Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
, still
very popular for printing extended texts in Germany in the late nineteenth century, which uses a single-storey 'g' in upright composition.
The
metal type
In typesetting, a sort or type is a block with a typographic character etched on it, which is lined up with others to print text. In movable-type printing, the sort or type is cast from a matrix mold and assembled by hand with other sorts be ...
of Akzidenz-Grotesk shows
variation between sizes, with adaptation of letter-spacing and proportions such as looser spacing at smaller text sizes, something that was normal practice in the
design and engraving of metal type.
In addition, there is variation between weights:
Karl Gerstner notes that even comparing one size (20pt), the medium and bold weights have different
x-height
upright 2.0, alt=A diagram showing the line terms used in typography
In typography, the x-height, or corpus size, is the distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the let ...
, cap height and descender length to the light and regular weights.
This is common with nineteenth-century sans-serifs, which were not designed with the intention of forming an extended family that would match together.
(Berthold literature from the 1900s marketed the light and regular weights as being compatible, light at the time called 'Royal-Grotesk'.
) The differences in proportions between different sizes and weights of Akzidenz-Grotesk has led to a range of contemporary adaptations, reviving or modifying different aspects of the original design, discussed below.
Early history
, detail below) released by the Bauer & Co. foundry of Stuttgart in 1896, the year before it was taken over by Berthold.
Akzidenz-Grotesk's design descends from a school of general-purpose sans-serifs cut in the nineteenth century.
Sans-serifs had become very popular in Germany by the late nineteenth century, which had a large number of small local
type foundries
A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Monot ...
offering different versions.
H. Berthold was founded in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
in 1858 initially to make
machined
Machining is a process in which a material (often metal) is cut to a desired final shape and size by a controlled material-removal process. The processes that have this common theme are collectively called subtractive manufacturing, which utilizes ...
brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...
printer's rule, moving into
casting metal type particularly after 1893.
Berthold publications from the 1920s onwards dated the design to 1898,
when the firm registered two
design patent
In the United States, a design patent is a form of legal protection granted to the ornamental design of an article of manufacture. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers ...
s on the family.
Recent research by historians Eckehart Schumacher-Gebler,
Indra Kupferschmid and Dan Reynolds has clarified many aspects of Akzidenz-Grotesk's history. The source of Akzidenz-Grotesk appears to be Berthold's 1897 purchase of the Bauer u. Cie Type Foundry of
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
(not to be confused with the much better-known
Bauer Type Foundry
Bauer is a German surname meaning "peasant" or "farmer". For notable people sharing the surname, see Bauer (surname).
Bauer may also refer to:
Education and literature
* Bauer's Lexicon, a dictionary of Biblical Greek
* Bauer College of Bus ...
of
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
); Kupferschmid concludes that the design appears to be related to a shadowed sans-serif (german: link=no, Schattierte Grotesk) sold by the Bauer Foundry and reviewed in a printing journal in 1896.
Two design patents on Akzidenz-Grotesk were filed in April 1898, first on the 14th in Stuttgart by Bauer and then on the 28th in Berlin by Berthold, leading Reynolds to conclude that the design was executed in Stuttgart.
Some early adverts that present Akzidenz-Grotesk are co-signed by both brands.
Early references to Akzidenz-Grotesk at Berthold often use the alternative spelling 'Accidenz-Grotesk'; Reynolds suggests that the name may have been intended as a
brand extension
Brand extension or brand stretching is a marketing strategy in which a firm marketing a product with a well-developed image uses the same brand name in a different product category. The new product is called a spin-off.
Organizations use this ...
following on from an "Accidenz-Gothisch" blackletter face sold by the Bauer & Co. foundry.
In general, Reynolds comments that the style of Schattierte Grotesk and Akzidenz-Grotesk "seem to me to be more of a synthesis of then-current ideas of sans serif letterform design, rather than copies of any specific products from other firms."
The light weight of Akzidenz-Grotesk was for many years branded separately as 'Royal-Grotesk'. It apparently was cut by Berthold around 1902-3, when it was announced in a trade periodical as "a new, quite usable typeface" and advertised as having matching dimensions allowing it to be combined with the regular weight of Akzidenz-Grotesk.
[ ][ ] Reynolds and Florian Hardwig have documented the german: label=none, italic=no, Schmalhalbfett weight (semi-bold, or medium, condensed) to be a family sold by many German type-foundries, which probably originated from a New York type foundry.
Günter Gerhard Lange
Günter Gerhard Lange (12 April 1921, in Frankfurt (Oder) – 2 December 2008, in Großhesselohe near Munich) was a German typographer, teacher and type designer.
He was longtime art director of Berthold Type Foundry and was one of the fathers ...
, Berthold's post-war artistic director, who was considered effectively the curator of the Akzidenz-Grotesk design, said in a 2003 interview Akzidenz-Grotesk came from the Ferdinand Theinhardt type foundry, and this claim has been widely copied elsewhere. This had been established by businessman and
punchcutter
Punchcutting is a craft used in traditional typography to cut letter punches in steel as the first stage of making metal type. Steel punches in the shape of the letter would be used to stamp matrices into copper, which were locked into a mould sh ...
Ferdinand Theinhardt, who was otherwise particularly famous for his scholarly endeavours in the field of
hieroglyph
A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...
and
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
typefaces; he had sold the business in 1885.
Kupferschmid and Reynolds speculate that he was misled by Akzidenz-Grotesk appearing in a Theinhardt foundry specimen after Berthold had taken the company over.
[ ] Reynolds additionally points out that Theinhardt sold his foundry to Oskar Mammen and Robert and Emil Mosig in 1885, a decade before Akzidenz-Grotesk was released, and there is no evidence that he cut any further fonts for them after this year.
As Lange commented, it was claimed in the post-war period that Royal-Grotesk's name referred to it being commissioned by the
Prussian Academy of Sciences
The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences (german: Königlich-Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften) was an academy established in Berlin, Germany on 11 July 1700, four years after the Prussian Academy of Arts, or "Arts Academy," to which "Berlin ...
, but Kupferschmid was not able to find it used in its publications.
Many other grotesques in a similar style to Akzidenz-Grotesk were sold in Germany during this period. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, these increasingly began to be branded as larger families of multiple matched styles.
Its competitors included the very popular
Venus-Grotesk of the Bauer foundry of Frankfurt, very similar to Akzidenz-Grotesk but with high-waisted capitals, and Koralle by
Schelter & Giesecke, which has a single-storey 'a'.
(
Monotype Grotesque 215 also is based on German typefaces of this period.) Seeman's 1926 ''Handbook of Typefaces'' (german: link=no, Handbuch der Schriftarten), a handbook of all the metal typefaces available in Germany, illustrates the wide range of sans-serif typefaces on sale in Germany by the time of its publication.
By around 1911, Berthold had begun to market Akzidenz-Grotesk as a complete family.
While apparently not unpopular, Akzidenz-Grotesk was not among the most intensively-marketed typefaces of the period, and was not even particularly aggressively marketed by Berthold.
A 1921 Berthold specimen and company history described it almost apologetically: "In 1898 Accidenz-Grotesk was created, which has earned a laurel wreath of fame for itself. This old typeface, which these days one would perhaps make in a more modern style, has a peculiar life in its own way which would probably be lost if it were to be altered. All the many imitations of Accidenz-Grotesk have not matched its character."
An unusual user of Berthold's Akzidenz-Grotesk in the period soon after its release, however, was the poet
Stefan George
Stefan Anton George (; 12 July 18684 December 1933) was a German symbolist poet and a translator of Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Hesiod, and Charles Baudelaire. He is also known for his role as leader of the highly influential literar ...
.
He commissioned some custom
uncial-style alternate characters to print his poetry.
[ ]
Mid-twentieth-century use
The use of Akzidenz-Grotesk and similar "grotesque" typefaces dipped from the late 1920s due to the arrival of fashionable new
"geometric" sans-serifs such as
Erbar,
Futura and
Kabel, based on the proportions of the circle and square. Berthold released its own family in this style, Berthold-Grotesk.
However, during this period there was increasing interest in using sans-serifs as capturing the spirit of the time, most famously,
Jan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold (born Johannes Tzschichhold, also known as Iwan Tschichold, or Ivan Tschichold; 2 April 1902 – 11 August 1974) was a German calligrapher, typographer and book designer. He played a significant role in the development of gra ...
's influential book ''The New Typography'' (german: link=no, Die Neue Typographie), which praised the aesthetic qualities of the "anonymous" sans-serifs of the nineteenth century and was printed in a sans-serif similar to Berthold's Akzidenz-Grotesk.'' is not Berthold's Akzidenz-Grotesk.
Its comments would prove influential in later graphic design:
Among all the types that are available, the so-called "Grotesque"...is the only one in spiritual accordance with our time. To proclaim sans-serif as the typeface of our time is not a question of being fashionable, it really does express the same tendencies to be seen in our architecture…there is no doubt that the sans-serif types available today are not yet wholly satisfactory as all-purpose faces. The essential characteristics of this type have not been fully worked out: the lower-case letters especially are still too like their "humanistic" counterparts. Most of them, in particular the newest designs such as Erbar and Kabel, are inferior to the old anonymous sans-serifs, and have modifications which place them basically in line with the rest of the "art" faces. As bread-and-butter faces they are less good than the old sans faces...I find the best face in use today is the so-called ordinary jobbing sanserif, which is quiet and easy to read.
The Swiss style
In the post-war period and particularly in Switzerland a revival in Akzidenz-Grotesk's popularity took hold, in what became known as the "Swiss International Style" of graphic design. This style often contrasted Akzidenz-Grotesk with photographic art, and did not use
all caps
In typography, all caps (short for "all capitals") refers to text or a font in which all letters are capital letters, for example: "THIS TEXT IS IN ALL CAPS". All caps may be used for emphasis (for a word or phrase). They are commonly seen in ...
as much as many older posters.
Graphic designers of this style such as Gerstner,
Josef Müller-Brockmann
Josef Müller-Brockmann (9 May 1914 – 30 August 1996) was a Swiss graphic designer, author, and educator, he was a Principal at Muller-Brockmann & Co. design firm. He was a pioneer of the International Typographic Style. Müller-Brockmann is re ...
and
Armin Hofmann
Armin Hofmann ( HonRDI) (29 June 1920 – 18 December 2020) was a Swiss graphic designer.
He began his career in 1947 as a teacher at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel School of Art and Crafts at the age of twenty-six. Hofmann followed Emil Ru ...
all used Akzidenz-Grotesk heavily.
Like Tschichold, Gerstner argued that the sans-serifs of the nineteenth century were more "matter-of-fact" (german: link=no, Selbstverständlichkeit) than the more "personal" recent sans-serifs of the previous decades.
Art historian Stephen Eskilson wrote that they "conveyed the functionalist ethos without appearing too stylised...in the manner of the more geometrically pure types."
Berthold suggested in the 1980s that the originator of this use of Akzidenz-Grotesk in
Zürich
Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...
was German-born designer
Anton Stankowski
Anton Stankowski (June 18, 1906 – December 11, 1998) was a Germany,
German graphic designer, photographer and Painting, painter. He developed an original Theory of Design and pioneered Constructive Graphic Art. Typical Stankowski designs atte ...
.
Akzidenz-Grotesk was popular in this period although other typefaces such as Monotype Grotesque were used also: a problem with use of Akzidenz-Grotesk up to the late 1950s was that it was only available in individual units of metal type for
manual composition. While this was acceptable for posters, by the 1950s
hot metal typesetting
In printing and typography, hot metal typesetting (also called mechanical typesetting, hot lead typesetting, hot metal, and hot type) is a technology for typesetting text in letterpress printing. This method injects molten type metal into a mol ...
machines had long since become the main system for printing general-purpose
body text
__NOTOC__
The body text or body copy is the text forming the main content of a book, magazine, web page, or any other printed or digital work. This is as a contrast to both additional components such as headings, images, charts, footnotes etc. on ...
, and for machine composition Akzidenz-Grotesk was unavailable until around 1958, when it was first sold on Linotype and then in 1960 on Intertype systems.
[ ] Much printing around this time of body text accordingly used Monotype Grotesque as a lookalike.
In the United States, Akzidenz-Grotesk was imported by Amsterdam Continental Types under the name 'Standard', and became quite popular. According to
Paul Shaw, "exactly when Amsterdam Continental began importing Standard is unclear but it appears on several record album covers as early as 1957."
In 1957, three notable competitors of Akzidenz-Grotesk appeared intended to compete with its growing popularity:
Helvetica
Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.
Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...
from the
Haas foundry, with a very high x-height and tight letterspacing,
Univers
Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a Grotesque (typeface classification), neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteen ...
from
Deberny & Peignot
Deberny & Peignot (Fonderie Deberny et Peignot) was a French type foundry, created by the 1923 merger of G. Peignot & Fils and Deberny & Cie. It was bought by the Haas Type Foundry (Switzerland) in 1972, which in turn was merged into D. Stempel A ...
, with a large range of weights and widths, and
Folio
The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...
from Bauer.
Shaw suggests that Helvetica "began to muscle out" Akzidenz-Grotesk in New York from around summer 1965, when Amsterdam Continental's marketing stopped pushing Standard strongly and began to focus on Helvetica instead.
By the 1960s, Berthold could claim in its type specimens that Akzidenz-Grotesk was:
a type series which has proved itself in practice for more than 70 years and has held its ground to the present day against all comers...wherever one sees graphics and advertising of an international standard...starting a revival in Switzerland in recent years, Akzidenz-Grotesk has progressed all over the world and impressed its image in the typography of our time.
Post-metal releases
Metal type declined in use from the 1950s onwards, and Akzidenz-Grotesk was rereleased in versions for the new
phototypesetting
Phototypesetting is a method of setting type. It uses photography to make columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper.
It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing (digital typesetting).
Th ...
technology, including Berthold's own
Diatype,
and then digital technologies.
Contemporary versions of Akzidenz-Grotesk descend from a late-1950s project, directed by Lange at Berthold, to enlarge the typeface family.
This added new styles including AG Extra (1958), AG Extra Bold (1966) and AG Super (1968), AG Super Italic (2001) and Extra Bold italic (2001).
Berthold ceased to cast type in 1978.
Separately, Gerstner and other designers at his company GGK Basel launched a project in the 1960s to build Akzidenz-Grotesk into a coherent series, to match the new families appearing in the same style; it was used by Berthold for its Diatype system in the late 60s under the name of "Gerstner-Programm" but according to Lange it was never fully released.
A digitisation has been released by the digital type foundry Forgotten Shapes.
H. Berthold AG of Germany declared bankruptcy in 1993 and the holder of the Berthold rights from 1993 to 2022 was Berthold Types of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
.
Berthold Types released Akzidenz-Grotesk in
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark o ...
format in 2006, under the name Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro, and added matching Cyrillic and Greek characters the next year.
Berthold Types' co-owner Harvey Hunt died in 2022, and the rights to its typeface library were acquired by
Monotype
Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix (printing), matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to ac ...
later that year.
Reception
As described above, many influential graphic designers have used Akzidenz-Grotesk. In 2013,
Pentagram
A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle aroun ...
partner Domenic Lippa rated Akzidenz-Grotesk as "probably the best typeface ever designed...it doesn’t overdominate when used, allowing the designer more freedom and versatility".
Kris Sowersby
The kris, or ''keris'' in the Indonesian language, is an asymmetrical dagger with distinctive blade-patterning achieved through alternating laminations of iron and nickelous iron (''pamor''). Of Javanese origin, the kris is famous for its dist ...
has written that he found the semi-bold and bold weights most satisfying.
Lange commented that the light weight "was my favourite font from the beginning. I used it on my first Berthold business card and my letterhead. It's a delicate, slender piece of engraving."
A particular criticism of Akzidenz-Grotesk however, has often been that the regular weight has capitals that look unbalanced relative to the lower-case, as shown on the cover of ''Designing Programmes'', which is problematic in extended text. Adrian Frutiger commented that Akzidenz-Grotesk forms "patches in print"; Reynolds that in a digital version "the capital letters are slightly too dark, and slightly too close to the lowercase letters that follow them in a word"
and Wolfgang Homola that in Helvetica "the weight of the stems of the capitals and the lower case is better balanced".
Distinctive characteristics
Characteristics of this typeface are:
lower case:
A 'folded-up' structure with narrow apertures and strokes curled up towards the vertical, most obvious on letters such as c, e, s and a.
Stroke endings, though, are less consistently horizontal or vertical than in Helvetica. A square dot over the letter i, double-storey a.
Single-storey g.
upper case:
G with a vertical spur.
The capitals are wide and have relatively little variation in width, with letters like 'E' and 'F' quite wide.
The 'M' is straight-sided with the diagonals meeting in the bottom centre of the letter.
Capitals in several weights have very noticeably thicker strokes than the lower-case.
On many but not all styles a straight leg on the 'R' and a 'Q' where the outstroke does not cut through the letter.
number:
A top serif on the 1 and in some styles a downward-pointing serif on the top left of the 7.
It is important to note, however, that as the weights and sizes of Akzidenz-Grotesk were cut separately not all these features will appear on all styles.
For instance, the 't' of the Schmalhalbfett weight only has no base, as it was designed separately and not by Berthold.
Akzidenz-Grotesk did not have italics until the post-war period.
Its slanted form is an
oblique
Oblique may refer to:
* an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / )
* Oblique angle, in geometry
*Oblique triangle, in geometry
*Oblique lattice, in geometry
* Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...
rather than a
true italic.
This means that the letters are slanted without using handwriting forms.
During the metal type period, when italics for Akzidenz-Grotesk were not available, Amsterdam Continental marketed those of an unrelated typeface, Mercator, as companions instead.
Versions
Metal type versions
Berthold's Akzidenz-Grotesk family by the late metal type period included the following styles. English names are taken from Berthold's Type Specimen (german: link=no, Schriftprobe) No. 473 except where stated otherwise:
* Akzidenz-Grotesk (Standard, available on Linotype in modified form as series 57 with
oblique
Oblique may refer to:
* an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / )
* Oblique angle, in geometry
*Oblique triangle, in geometry
*Oblique lattice, in geometry
* Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...
)
* Halbfett (Medium or literally semi-bold, available on Linotype in modified form as series 58 and as poster type)
* Mager (Light, sometimes sold as Royal-Grotesk)
* Fett (Bold, available as poster type)
* Schmalmager (Light Condensed)
* Eng (Condensed)
* Schmalhalbfett (Medium Condensed,
originally called "Steinschrift eng". Not designed by Berthold.
The 'R' has a curled leg and in metal type the 't' no base.
)
* Schmalfett (Bold Condensed,
originally called "german: label=none, italic=no, Bücher-Grotesk halbfett". Available as poster type, 'R' with a curled leg)
* Extra (Extrabold Condensed, tighter-spaced than the Schmalfett weight)
* Extrafett (Compact, or literally, also extra-bold)
* Skelett (Extralight Extended)
* Breitmager (Light Extended)
* Breit (Extended)
* Breithalbfett (Medium Extended, or literally Semi-bold Extended)
* Breitfett (Extrabold Extended, or literally Bold Extended)
Reynolds prefers 'Bold Condensed' to describe the Schmalhalbfett and 'Condensed Heavy' for the Schmalfett.
Other weights were added by the time of the phototypesetting and digital versions, such as the ultra-bold 'Akzidenz-Grotesk Super'.
Akzidenz-Grotesk Buch
Akzidenz-Grotesk Book (german: link=no, Buch) is a variant designed by Lange between 1969 and 1973. Designed after Helvetica had become popular, it incorporates some of its features, such as strike-through tail in 'Q', a curved tail for the 'R', horizontal and vertical cut stroke terminators.
As in some Helvetica versions, the
cedilla
A cedilla ( ; from Spanish) or cedille (from French , ) is a hook or tail ( ¸ ) added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation. In Catalan, French, and Portuguese (called cedilha) it is used only under the ' ...
is replaced with a comma. Former Berthold font designer
Erik Spiekermann
Erik Spiekermann (born 30 May 1947 in Stadthagen, Lower Saxony) is a German typographer, designer and writer. He is an honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen and ArtCenter College of Design.
Biography
Spiekermann studied art his ...
has called it Lange's "answer to Helvetica." Late in life Lange made no apology for it, commenting when asked about a design alleged to be a copy of one of his own original designs: "there are also people who say that the best Helvetica is my AG Book."
Digital versions included Greek and Cyrillic characters, and the family includes a condensed, extended, rounded and stencil series.
Akzidenz-Grotesk Schulbuch
Akzidenz-Grotesk Schoolbook (german: link=no, Schulbuch) is a 1983 variant of Akzidenz-Grotesk Buch also designed by Lange.
It uses
schoolbook characters
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
, characters intended to be more distinct and closer to handwritten forms to be easier for children to recognise.
Generally based on Akzidenz-Grotesk Book, it includes a single-storey 'a', curled 'l', lower- and upper-case 'k' that are symmetrical, and 't', 'u' and 'y' without curls on the base.
The 'J' has a top bar, the 'M' centre does not descend to the baseline and the 'G' and 'R' are simplified in the manner of Futura.
A particularly striking feature is a blackletter-style default upper-case 'i' with a curl at the bottom: this is rarely encountered in the English-speaking world (it would more commonly be recognized as a J), but much more common in Germany.
Each weight is available in two fonts featuring alternative designs. In 2008, OpenType Pro versions of the fonts were released.
FontFont
FontShop International was an international manufacturer of digital typefaces (fonts), based in Berlin. It was one of the largest digital Type foundry, type foundries.
The ''FontFont'' library of fonts contains designs by 160 type designers, amon ...
's FF Schulbuch family is in a similar style.
Akzidenz-Grotesk Old Face
Akzidenz-Grotesk Old Face, designed by Lange and released in 1984, was intended to be more true to the metal type than previous phototypesetting versions and incorporate more of the original type's inconsistencies of dimensions such as x-height.
It also incorporates a comma-style cedilla in the medium and bold weights, inward hook in regular-weighted
ß, and a shortened horizontal serif on the regular-weighted ''1''.
Regular, medium, bold, outline, bold outline and shaded styles were made for the family, but no obliques.
Berthold promoted the series with a brochure designed by Karl Duschek and Stankowski.
Akzidenz-Grotesk Next
In December 2006, Berthold announced the release of Akzidenz-Grotesk Next.
Designed by Bernd Möllenstädt and Dieter Hofrichter, this typeface family features readjusted x-heights and weights throughout the family, giving a more consistent design.
The family consists of 14 variants with 7 weights in roman and italic, in a single width.
Similarities to other typefaces
Several type designers modelled typefaces on this popular typeface in the 1950s; Reynolds comments that the original Akzidenz-Grotesk has limitations in extended text: "the capital letters are slightly too dark."
Max Miedinger
Max Miedinger (24 December 1910 – 8 March 1980) was a Swiss typeface designer, best known for creating the ''Neue Haas Grotesk'' typeface in 1957, renamed Helvetica in 1960. Marketed as a symbol of cutting-edge Swiss technology, Helvetica achie ...
at the Haas Foundry used it as a model for the typeface Neue Haas-Grotesk, released in 1957 and renamed Helvetica in 1961. Miedinger sought to refine the typeface making it more even and unified, with a higher x-height, tighter spacing and generally horizontal terminals.
Two other releases from 1957, Adrian Frutiger's Univers and Bauer's Folio, take inspiration from Akzidenz-Grotesk; Frutiger's goal was to eliminate what he saw as unnecessary details, removing the dropped spur at bottom right of the G and converting the '1' and the '7' into two straight lines.
Much more loosely,
Transport
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, an ...
, the typeface used on British road signs, was designed by
Jock Kinneir
Richard "Jock" Kinneir (11 February 1917 – 23 August 1994) was a British typographer and graphic designer who, with his colleague Margaret Calvert, designed many of the road signs used throughout the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies, and ...
and
Margaret Calvert
Margaret Vivienne Calvert (born 1936) is a British typographer and graphic designer who, with colleague Jock Kinneir, designed many of the road signs used throughout the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies, and British Overseas Territories, as we ...
influenced by Akzidenz-Grotesk.
However, many adaptations and letters influenced by other typefaces were incorporated to increase legibility and make characters more distinct.
"Akzidenz-Grotesk" (Haas)
A completely different "Akzidenz-Grotesk" was made by the Haas Type Foundry of Switzerland. Also named "Accidenz-Grotesk" and "Normal-Grotesk", it had a more condensed, "boxy" design.
Kupferschmid describes it as a "reworking of "Neue Moderne Grotesk", originally ca. 1909 by Wagner & Schmidt, Leipzig".
The Haas Foundry created Helvetica in response to its decline in popularity in competition with Berthold's design.
Alternative digitisations
Although the digital data of Berthold releases of Akzidenz-Grotesk is copyrighted, and the name is trademarked,
the ''design'' of a typeface is in many countries
not copyrightable, notably in the United States, allowing alternative interpretations under different names if they do not reuse digital data.
The Swiss digital type foundry Optimo has released an alternative digitisation of Akzidenz-Grotesk named "Theinhardt", which Spiekermann has praised as "the best" Akzidenz-Grotesk digitisation.
Linotype, which started to sell Akzidenz-Grotesk on its hot metal typesetting system in the 1950s, continues to sell a limited digital version under the other common alternative name, 'Basic Commercial', and
Bitstream
A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits.
A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...
offer a two-weight version named 'Gothic 725'.
The American publisher CastleType has released a digitisation originally created for ''
San Francisco Focus
''San Francisco'' is an American monthly magazine devoted to the people, culture, food, politics, and arts of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published monthly by Modern Luxury publications.
History
There have been two separate ''San Francis ...
'' magazine under the name "Standard CT".
A digitisation by Kris Sowersby named Söhne, in three widths with
a monospaced version was released by
Klim Type Foundry
The Klim Type Foundry is a digital type foundry operated by Kris Sowersby, a New Zealand typeface designer. Klim was founded in 2005 and is currently based in Wellington. Klim produces retail typefaces, custom typefaces and custom lettering and l ...
in 2019.
A proprietary digitisation named NYC Sans by Nick Sherman and Jeremy Mickel, which has many alternate characters, is the corporate font of New York City's tourist board
NYC & Company
NYC & Company is New York City’s official marketing, tourism and partnership organization. The not-for-profit quasi-agency's mission is to maximize opportunities for travel and tourism in New York City
Tourism is travel for pleasure or bus ...
.
Spiekermann has also released with Ralph du Carrois a very loose digitisation of Akzidenz Grotesk, FF Real, in two
optical size
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mode ...
s, with variant features like a two-storey 'g',
ligatures, and a true italic.
A digitisation of Stefan George-Schrift by Colin Kahn has been published by
P22.
Transport has also been digitised in several versions.
Notable users
Besides use in Swiss-style poster design and in New York City transportation, Akzidenz-Grotesk is the corporate font of
Arizona State University
Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...
and the
American Red Cross
The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the desi ...
(with
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
).
Akzidenz-Grotesk Bold Extended is used as the official font for the words "
U.S. Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...
" in the display of the USAF symbol.
Berthold sued
Target Corporation
Target Corporation (doing business as Target and stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American big box department store chain headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the seventh largest retailer in the United States, and a compon ...
for copyright infringement and breach of contract in 2017, alleging that Target had asked a design firm to use the font in a promotional video without a license.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
used Akzidenz-Grotesk in the original “CC” logo and the subsequent, lowercase wordmark. In 2018, the CC Accidenz Commons font was designed specifically for Creative Commons as an open-licensed replacement for Akzidenz-Grotesk, although the design has a very limited character set.
Volvo
The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...
has used a typeface based on Akzidenz-Grotesk, commissioned from
LucasFonts
Lucas de Groot (born in Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands), known professionally as Luc(as) de Groot, is a Dutch typographer, type designer. He is the head of the type foundry Fontfabrik, also trading as LucasFonts.
De Groot is particularly known ...
.
Japanese car manufacturer Nissan has used custom versions of Akzidenz-Grotesk supplied by Berthold as a corporate typeface, amongst other typefaces.
See also
*Berthold typesetting systems#Berthold ADS (Akzidenz Dialog System), Berthold Akzidenz Dialog System
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
* Lay summary:
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{refend
External links
*Berthold pages
Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro+Akzidenz-Grotesk NextAG Old FaceAG Book Pro+AG Book RoundedAG Book Stencil et alAG Schoolbook Akzidenz Grotesk sample booksdigitised by Ulrich Stiehl
Berthold specimens from c. 1913 showing Schattierte-Grotesk and co-branding mentioning Berthold and Bauer
* ''Fonts in Use'' coverage
Akzidenz-GroteskAG CondensedAG BookStandard(for American uses)
Probe 429A(c. 1960 specimen, photographed by Stephen Coles/Thomas Maier)
Berthold advertisement from 1937not showing Akzidenz-Grotesk. The advert showcases "modern and successful" faces, illustrating the eclipse of Akzidenz-Grotesk in this period.
Berthold typefaces
Linotype typefaces
Grotesque sans-serif typefaces
Letterpress typefaces
Photocomposition typefaces
Digital typefaces
Typefaces with infant variants
Products introduced in 1898