VEB Typoart was the only

type foundry 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 Mono ...

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

. 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 The Publicly Owned Enterprise (german: Volkseigener Betrieb; abbreviated VEB) was the main legal form of industrial enterprise in East Germany. They were all publicly owned and were formed after Nationalisation#Germany, mass nationalisation between ...

") located in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

. 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 (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 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 ...

in 1948 through a merger of several nationalised type foundries, including Schelter & Giesecke (1945),

Schriftguss AG Schriftguss AG was a type foundry in Germany founded in 1892 under the name ''Brüder Butter'' (“Butter Brothers”) by purchasing the type casting firm of Otto Ludwig Bechert that had been founded in 1889. It was later incorporated in 1922 as ...

(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

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 ...

s 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 Compugraphic Corporation, commonly called cg, was an American producer of typesetting systems and phototypesetting equipment, based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, just a few miles from where it was founded. This company is distinct from Compugraph ...

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 Matrix most commonly refers to: * ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise ** ''The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film ** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchis ...

, 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