H. Berthold AG was one of the largest and most successful type foundries in the world for most of the modern

typographic Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacin ...

era, making the transition from foundry type to

cold type Phototypesetting is a method of setting type which 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 which gave rise to digit ...

successfully and only coming to dissolution in the digital type era.

History

H. Berthold was founded in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

in 1858 by Hermann Berthold, initially to make

machined Machining is a manufacturing process where a desired shape or part is created using the controlled removal of material, most often metal, from a larger piece of raw material by cutting. Machining is a form of subtractive manufacturing, which util ...

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

printer's rule. It then moved into casting metal type particularly after 1893. The company played a key role in the introduction of major new

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

s and was a successful player in the development of

typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text for publication, display, or distribution by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other ...

machines. The production premises were on

Wilhelmstrasse Wilhelmstraße, or Wilhelmstrasse (see ß; ; ) is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte and Kreuzberg districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it was recognised as the centre of the government, first of the Kingdom of Prussia, and la ...

No. 1 until 1868, and then on Mehringdamm 43. In 1979 the factory moved to another location between Teltow Canal and Wiesenweg in Lichterfelde. The H. Berthold foundry's most celebrated family of typefaces is arguably

Akzidenz-Grotesk Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin in 1898. ' indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tickets and forms, as opposed to fine pr ...

(released 1898), an early

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 ...

which prefigured by half a century the release of enormously popular neo-grotesque faces such as

Helvetica Helvetica, also known by its original name 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 f ...

. In 1950,

type designer Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below. A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...

Günter Gerhard Lange embarked upon a long affiliation with the company, for which he designed various original typefaces, including

Concorde Concorde () is a retired Anglo-French supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and the United Kingdom signed a treaty establishin ...

and Imago, and oversaw the foundry's revivals of classic faces such as

Garamond Garamond is a group of many serif typefaces, named for sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond, generally spelled as Garamont in his lifetime. Garamond-style typefaces are popular to this day and often used for book printing and bod ...

Caslon Caslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon, William Caslon I in London, or inspired by his work. Caslon worked as an Engraving, engraver of Punchcutting, punches, the masters used to stamp the moulds or Matrix (printi ...

, Baskerville, and

Bodoni Bodoni (, ) is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since. Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone (typography), Didone or modern. Bo ...

. In 1996, Harvey Hunt (1949–2022) and his wife Melissa, reestablished the company as Berthold Types. In 1997, Berthold Types acquired all of the copyright, trademark and design rights associated with the Berthold Exklusiv Collection. Günter Gerhard Lange, Berthold Exklusiv Collection type director during H. Berthold AG era, worked for Berthold Types Limited as an exclusive artistic consultant until his death in 2008. Following Harvey Hunt's death,

Monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...

announced the acquisition of Berthold Types's inventory of typefaces (but not legal entity) in August 2022.

Lawsuit controversy

During Harvey Hunt's tenure at Berthold Types Limited, the company was accused of sending (frivolous) legal letters usually related to alleged trademark violations. This led to discussions of issues of Berthold not paying the original designers, such as Albert Boton.

Cold Type

As a typefounder, Berthold had no background in producing

machinery until the introduction of the Diatype in 1958. The Diatype was a relatively small desktop-sized headline-setting device (i.e. not intended for continuous justified text), based on a glass disc

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

master. Character selection was by means of a trigger mounted on the front of the machine (giving rise to the colloquial naming of the machine as the "duck-shooter" (in the UK at least). When changing font, it was a notable feature of the machine that it required calibration of

letter-spacing Examples of headline letter spacing Letter spacing, character spacing or tracking is an optically consistent typographical adjustment to the space between letters to change the visual density of a line or block of text. Letter spacing is disti ...

by the typing of a nonsense character sequence: "Hillimillihirtzheftpflasterentferner". Measuring the width of this 'word' at a specific font size would indicate if the character width and spacing was set correctly.

Digital Type

Diatronic

Berthold Diatronic systems were based on a glass grid master of each

font weight In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regula ...

, composed on a code-driven system. A marching-character display provided editing capabilities only to the line currently being composed.

Berthold ADS (Akzidenz Dialog System)

The next incarnation of the Diatronic system was widely adopted in the high-quality ad setting trade in Europe. Its major advantage was fine control of

typography Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...

thanks to continuously variable optics, allowing fractions of point sizes to be specified. Operator feedback was by means of a green-screen CRT display showing code

mnemonic A mnemonic device ( ), memory trick or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval in the human memory, often by associating the information with something that is easier to remember. It makes use of e ...

s only, it being left to the operator to visualise final output. Keyboard operation was innovative, utilizing many keys with a single legend, such as , , , , etc. System operation was therefore effected by a combination of keys, such as , then to save a file.

Typefaces

These foundry types were produced by Berthold:.

Cold Typefaces

These types were produced for photo-composition by Berthold:

References

External links

Berthold Types Limited– Official website

Discussion about the copyright of Berthold fonts in the forum of Typophile website

Ulrich Stiehl document discussing the copyright of Berthold fonts (in German)

Ulrich Stiehl document in English discussing the copyright of Berthold fonts
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Berthold (Company) Letterpress font foundries of Germany Cold type foundries Commercial type foundries Manufacturing companies based in Berlin