VEB Typoart was the only type foundry of East Germany. It was a

state-owned enterprise A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a Government, government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn Profit (econom ...

(" Volkseigener Betrieb") located in Dresden. The foundry's most influential

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

s were

Herbert Thannhäuser Herbert may refer to: People Individuals * Herbert (musician), a pseudonym of Matthew Herbert Name * Herbert (given name) * Herbert (surname) Places Antarctica * Herbert Mountains, Coats Land * Herbert Sound, Graham Land Australia * Herbert, ...

(until 1963) and

Albert Kapr Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia * Albert Productions, a record label * Albert ...

(until 1987).

History

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VEB Typoart was created by the government of the German Democratic Republic in 1948 through a merger of several nationalised type foundries, including Schelter & Giesecke (1945), Schriftguss AG (1951), Ludwig Wagner AG (1961), and Norddeutsche Schriftgießerei (1961). Originally called Schriftguß KG Dresden (1945) and VEB Schriftguß Dresden (1958), the enterprise was renamed to VEB Typoart in 1951. From 1970, it was subordinated to '' Zentrag'', a state enterprise coordinating all GDR printing activity. Typoart's principal mission was to create typefaces for Eastern Germany and other

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

countries. It was frequently ordered to plagiarise Western typefaces that Zentrag could not afford to license. In the course of

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

, Typoart was privatised as Typoart GmbH in 1990 and went bankrupt in 1995 after a negotiated sale to Compugraphic fell through. Many of Typoart's fonts and other works were lost at this time, including original matrices of Tschichold's type Saskia, although employees managed to save some matrices, original drawings and digital data. After this, the copyright status of Typoart's typefaces remained uncertain. Some have been reissued in digital form by other type foundries, mostly by Elsner & Flake. Some of Typoart's matrices are preserved at the ''Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig''.

Typefaces

Typoart's typefaces included:

References

*
Myfonts.com entry for VEB Typoart

External links

{{commons category

(with a full list of typefaces)
Typoart-Freunde
Letterpress font foundries of Germany Cold type foundries Volkseigene Betriebe Design companies established in 1948 1948 establishments in Germany Design companies disestablished in 1995 German companies disestablished in 1995 German companies established in 1948 Manufacturing companies based in Dresden