De Roos Romein (1947, Sjoerd H. De Roos, Lettergieterij Amsterdam)
Lutetia (1923–24, Jan van Krimpen, Enschedé)
Pierre Didot l’Aîné (1819)
Romain du Roi (1693–1745, Philippe Grandjean, Académie des Sciences)

Some De Roos samples:

Faces I Wish Were Digitized

Grandjean (Romain du Roi) was digitised by Franck Jalleau in 1995-1997 for the Imprimerie Nationale. Don’t know if it’s available to buy.

I would love to see, among other things, a digitisation of Touraine by Cassandre (Deberny & Peignot, 1947) or its lookalike Chambord by Excoffon (Olive, 1945-1951). Both can be seen in Jaspert, Berry & Johnson’s Encycl. of Typefaces. Nicely post-deco and not quite as bizarre and dogmatic as Peignot.

Very much looking forward to the digitisation of Ronaldson (MS&J, 1884), soon to be completed by Rebecca Alaccari (Canadatype). Not really what you would call a classic, but there’s nothing quite like it around anymore, and surprisingly comfortable as a textface despite unclassical letterforms.

Nice choice!
Currently I’m working on De Roos and believe it will be finished next year.
I saw it on the “Catalogue de caractères de la fonderie de caractères Plantin” and I felt completely in love with that typeface.

Dino dos Santos
DSType

Dino — Apart from a few comments, I put links to some larger scans in this thread: http://typophile.com/node/28266 (bottom of the page). The scans were taken from a Spanish/Portuguese edition of a specimen book of the Lettergierij Amsterdam “voorheen Tetterode”. (The Etbs Plantin were the Belgian distributor of this Dutch foundry and are still active as the Belgian exclusive sales agent for Heidelberg Druckmaschinen AG.)

I didn’t know about your foundry. Beautiful typefaces, you have there! Please keep me informed of your De Roos revival: I am most interested.

Marc, the Jalleau version is a digitization of what Grandjean ended up with; more interesting to me would be the digitization of the original design by the Bignon committee, especially the highly pure -if also rigidly ideological- italic.

Dino, how are you handling the rights issue?

hhp

Element (1934, Max Bitroff, Bauer). If only to shake it up a little with more recent typefaces of the same name; Bitroff got there first with the title, and did a culturally significant design at the same time.

van Krimpen’s Lutetia, Romanée and Romulus, of course. I think Fred Smeijers did revive one of them, but it was also never released.

One of my wishes
Maximum A

Another vote for Lutetia. Anybody else read Doyald Young’s article about Van Krimpen?

My specimens book was published by Établissements Plantin S.A. - Buxelles, Anvers.
The main languages in the book are Portuguese and Spanish, besides French.

I started designing De Roos but then I stopped because there are legal issues I don’t know how to handle. I totally ignore if the anyone owns the rights.

Actually, Hrant, digitising the Bignon design would be fascinating for more than one reason. Grandjean had to change it because the details were more or less unfeasible in metal type, of course, whereas a digital version could be absolutely true. But at text size we would also see how well it works optically as it is. And probably have to agree with some of Grandjean’s changes. First problems in sight: the skinny lowercase g and y.

I must admit I never did really like the Romain du Roi for its symmetrically-seriffed ascenders. How can you get any flow into a text interspersed with Corinthian pillars?

Bram — Romulus has been digitsed by DTL; it’s not as such on their website (preview only), but it might ship already. (They’re in the process of converting their library into OpenType.)

DTL has the rights on van Krimpen’s designs, including lots of original drawings (for which, it seems, they paid a high price). The attempt is to digitise and revive JvK’s oeuvre: http://www.dutchtypelibrary.nl/VanKrimpen.html. As far as I know, however, Lutetia and the Cancellaresca Bastarda will likely not be issued very soon. Romanée might be in the pipeline.

Dino — Please keep up the good work on De Roos! As far as I remember, DTL tried to get the rights (not planning, though, to digitise/release the face), but did not succeed. I think it was because it’s not all too clear who the present owner is. Likely the Buhrmann concern is involved (they own the company that formerly was the Lettergieterij Amsterdam); I grant the rightful owners are De Roos’ heirs. I’ll try to find out, as long as you’re not giving this up. For Beauty’s sake, please?

I wont give up. I’m working carefully

I wont give up. I’m working carefully on that project.
I thought that De Roos was already public domain and I think that is a typeface of major typographic interest.

Sorry for disturbing.
You are showing a digital bold or xbold version of Element, right?
Here is the regular one. And the guys’ name is Bittrof not Bitroff - but this is only a minor detail.

Group Xa - Gebrochene Schriften - Gotisch
Element schmalhalbfett

Bauersche Giesserei, Frankfurt am Main
Erstguß 1934
Max Bittrof

> Doyald Young’s article about Van Krimpen

Werzat?

> Grandjean had to change it because the details
> were more or less unfeasible in metal type

True, but I also think it was as much a stylistic imposition on his part. He shouldn’t have done it. It’s not like the world had a dearth of conventional italics.

> symmetrically-seriffed ascenders

I remember JFP also objecting to that, to the point of ridicule. But I see the positive in it: not only does it express a grand style ahead of its time (note how liked Democratica became centuries later) but I think they actually help readability (by reinforcing extenders). Which is not to say I think the RdR is highly readable overall.

> it’s not all too clear who the present owner is.

If a good effort at research validates this ambiguity, then I personally see the free third-party revival of the design as contingent only upon the informal blessing of De Roos’s heir (unless he’s unreasonable to the point of misanthropy, in which case I would ignore him). As a point of courtesy protocol however I would inform competing potential revivers of the decision.

hhp

Georg – you’re not disturbing and thank you for the correction. Details are good. Yes I had drawn the schmalhalbfett not the mager. Yes I had missed the double t in Bittroff. Now I can fix them both.

Actually your example of Maximum A made me think that this type has another name in the English speaking world. It looks familiar – does anyone else agree?

Other types on the wish list to be revived? Er, the Doves Type? (1900, T.J. Cobden Sanderson, Emery Walker, Edward Prince, Doves Press) or have we had this old chestnut already? Monotype Condensa? (designer unknown? date unknown?) The full family of Erbar Grotesk, not just the condensed version. Every time I look through an older specimen books I see stuff that I’m pretty sure has not yet been revived, but everytime I go online I get the opposite feeling!

Or, coming back to De Roos, the Hollandse Mediaeval (1912, Sjoerd H. De Roos, Lettergieterij Amsterdam/Intertype) with its decorated initials...

Ben — The Doves Type has been revived—from drowning—already, by Torbjörn Olsson: http://www.sinnebild.se/font/large/doves.html. Have a look at his “Troycer” too.

As for De Roos: only his eponymous typeface is really worth mentioning. The Hollandsche Mediaevaal is of historical interest because of its widespread use in the Netherlands and Flanders, and, of course, for its being the first Dutch design since Fleischman, but it’s an ungainly thing. (So in order not to bring anyone into temptation of reviving the old bastard, I’m not going to put up these scans.)

Ludwig – that should be exhumed, resurrected and revived for the Doves! Did they use scuba divers? ; ) Thanks for the info. I didn’t know about Torbjörn Olsson or his site.

I had meant to put up a scan of the Hollandse Mediaeval Initials (if only because on the earlier thread Paul listed people are talking about reviving Helvetica Flair... honestly you can have a Helv Flair revival right after all the other ungainly things in the universe)

But I can’t insert the image and don’t know why; worked fine before.

A question to you all:
What about the copyrights?
Lots of the old german fonts are still belonging to someone.
In my font collection I have some hundreds of examples of german fonts and all are scanned in low reselution and high res for a print-project what we’ll start in 2007.

Is it legal to offer and to use high res scans for typographists to revive these fonts? (Not only by law but although from an ethic standpoint).

Please let me know.

Here is my font collection - all classified by DIN 16 518

http://www.bleisetzer.de/index.php?target=shop/shop&b=0004

Georg

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin
“Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben?”

Man, you Germans sure used to know how to make Italics. What happened?

hhp

Sorry?

Georg

Well, you weren’t the only ones - the French also knew how to make them towards the end of the 19th century - but then all of you started falling for the Italian stuff. Revive the genius* of Höhnisch, please.

* Please see my post of September 20.

hhp

BTW Georg, for your consideration:
http://typophile.com/node/28118

hhp

Walter Höhnisch’s genius by designing the National in 1934?
May be it was the right time to make money with these kind of fonts but its opportunistic, isn’t it? I do not think the National is a genius one, sorry.

I prefer the german types before 1933.
One of my favourite types what I’ld like to beware is e.g.

You know that?
Elegant-Grotesk halbfett
D.Stempel AG, Frankfurt am Main
Erstguß 1928
Gustav Möhring

Georg
Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin
“Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben?”

Georg — There is no problem with publishing specimens. After all, fonts are meant to be used in printing or other publishing projects, right? What others intend to do with those publications is something different, for that matter. For a digital revival, legally one would have to acquire the proper rights from the present owners, I guess, if the designs and/or names are not in the public domain already. How is Dipl.-Ing. Menzel managing the rights issue? http://www.romana-hamburg.de/fraktur1.htm

I suggest you take contact with the Bund für deutsche Schrift und Sprache. They published an interesting book with specimens of 114 German types, most of it Fraktur: Wolfgang Hendlmeier (ed.), Kunstwerke der Schrift. Gedichte und Sinnsprüche im Kleide schöner Druckschriften aus sechs Jahrhunderten, Bayreuth: Bund für deutsche Schrift und Sprache, 1994.

Reviving typefaces of typographic interest, is imho always ethically right. If the designer is still alive, it makes no sense to “revive” a typeface of his; plagiarising his design would be robbery. If he’s passed away, I think his children should benefit from their father’s labour, to a certain extent. But if some clever boys managed to get hold of someone else’s intellectual property, making money out of it by acting as monopolists, denying mankind access to its cultural heritage, ignoring these mercantile stolen “rights” is not only ethically correct, it’s a moral obligation.

Georg, “genial” was too strong a term - sorry. I was rushed - normally I use that term very rarely - but instead of editing it and making your post confusing I’ve just asterisked it.

That said:
1) Nobody’s perfect, and the more type you make the more likely you’ll end up with a lemon or two.
2) Making money sometimes or even often (some would even say usually) does not preclude being intelligent, insightful or culturally responsible.

Looking specifically at your two samples*, I would say:
1) Elegant-Grotesk is cute[r], but not really significant. And I can see plently of issues of craft in its forms.
2) National might have been overly nationalistic and/or mainstream when it was made, but right here right now it’s more useful and interesting than Elegant-Grotesk.
3) If you feel that either of those (and specifically Elegant-Grotesk) are more interesting and more worthy of revival than the Höhnisch sample I posted above, then we really are looking for very different things in type design.

* And assuming you meant to say “be aware”, not “beware” above.

> There is no problem with publishing specimens.

Actually IIRC, P M Noordzij once told me (I have the email somewhere) that merely scanning a type sample and sending it to a friend is illegal in the Netherlands, much less “publishing” it. Of course, each country is different, but be careful of blanket statements.

> mercantile stolen “rights”

Here again I think you’re being unfair.

hhp

I should have been more precise. Why do you use fonts? Right, to set type. Should that mean, with those fonts of which you legally purchased the user’s license, you’re supposed to set running text only (for which, of course, you or your client has the proper copyrights)? Are you not allowed to set and publish alphabets and such? Of course you are. Probably someone did this before, though, and he might have done so in a particular inventively new composition, of which he, the type specimen designer, is the rightful owner. You cannot simply steel his work and copy it right along. But is P.M. Noordzij or whoever now going to tell whether “The quick brown fox” or “Quousq; tandem” has been set already in, say, 10/12, in that particular font, so that nobody else can do that any longer without copyright infringements? Honestly, that’s mere nonsense!

I suppose Georg and every other type collector that desires to give the world a glance at his collection, has to set those specimens all over again, instead of scanning those which are available already. Poor, poor world.

Well,
first of all: Good Morning. Its 8:03 am in Germany and this is not my time.
I’ll think about your arguments, you brought logical ones.
What I do is not only to collect fonts.
My place here is like a heater: I buy old german typesetting departments (there are still dozends of it all over Germany from family printing companies, which are existing since more than two or three generations).
I clean and check the types and I print new ones with a full sort of alphabet, digits and - what is it in english “Punkturen” (all special signs). After printing I offer the type in my Online-Shop and give it back to printers again. Because I want it to be used in real life, not only sleeping in my cabinets. There is a small community of, let’s say, 200 up to 300 printers from Germany, Italy, England and from the US, which buy and use my types.
For 2007 I am planning a printing project - so I scan all my alphabets. May be you’ll see it as senseful for your own projects to use one of my scans. Let me know.
I want to look for some advices from some experienced typesetters here in Germany to make my own decision.

Regards,
Georg
PS: Please do not use those fonts between 1933 and 1945 - there are other fonts which even better characterize Germany.

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin
“Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben?”

@ben_archer
>Actually your example of Maximum A made me think that this type has another name in the English speaking world. It looks familiar – does anyone else agree?

Does that reminds you of some Neville Brody stuff?

ps.
Morgen, Georg

Hallo Poms,
die typophile Welt ist klein, isn’t it?

Georg

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin
“Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben?”

before even bothering about reviving atrocities* like National, Tannenberg, Gotenburg etc. – give me a digital Futura with optical sizes!

* i mean it!

hrant said :
> the Höhnisch sample I posted above

I thought the sample was Genzsch Antiqua - Kursiv, by Friedrich Bauer. Now I’m confused :( Looks very close to the version digitized by G. Helzel

This is Genzsch Antiqua kursiv:

Genzsch & Heyse, Hamburg
Erstguß 1908
Entwurf Friedrich Bauer

From Walter Höhnisch worked for Ludwig & Mayer.
Here you can find all his fonts:
http://www.klingspor-museum.de/KlingsporKuenstler/Schriftdesigner/Hoehni...

Georg

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin
“Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben?”

Now I’m really confused. The Helzel version looks different.

Unfortunately the pdf from Klingspor Museum doesn’t have many samples.
I think someone should make a searchable online database with low resolution samples of all those old fonts ...

Great idea! The TypeBank: just load up the samples you’ve got, fill in the form with all the data there is to it. You can search by period style, designer, punch cutter, whether or not there exist digital revivals (with a listing) &c. &c.

Alright, with Genzsch Antiqua Gerhard Helzel shows the right version and I the wrong one - sorry about that.

This is a scan from the original Genzsch & Heyse specimen from 1908:

grrrr..

Georg

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin
“Ich bin ein Preuße, kennt Ihr meine Farben?”

Futura is a caricature of type. My pet name for it is Fartura.

hhp

> before even bothering about reviving atrocities* like National,
> Tannenberg, Gotenburg etc. – give me a digital Futura with
> optical sizes!

It seems Paul Renner’s Futura was Adolf Hitler’s favourite typeface:
http://www.druckerey.de/pdf/FrakturschriftSZ2005.pdf

Tannenberg has been revived, by both G. Helzel and Delbanco Schriften.

“Futura is a caricature of type. My pet name for it is Fartura.”

You are joking, are’nt you?

Georg

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin

No, and sadly neither was Renner. Or maybe he was simply being opportunistic...

And something else to fan the mainstream flames:
http://www.themicrofoundry.com/ss_fraktur1.html

hhp

@ Ludwig, do you understand this german article you sent the links from?
“It seems Paul Renner’s Futura was Adolf Hitler’s favourite typeface:
http://www.druckerey.de/pdf/FrakturschriftSZ2005.pdf”

What you say is absolutely wrong.
There is not one sentence in the article about Paul Renner.

Paul Renner was striktly forbidden to work as a typographist after 1933. He was against the Nazis.

The article explains about the so called “Fraktur-Verbot” (all use of Fraktur were forbidden) sind 1941. Only Antiqua fonts where allowed for all administrative letters.

Georg

Obsessively linking everything -such as the future of a resplendent and highly promising typestyle- to the misdeeds and twists of your previous generation is holding you (and by extension the whole world) back. Don’t be such Hellers.

hhp

Lieber Georg — Haben Sie den Artikel gelesen? Ich nehme an Sie verstehen ja besser Deutsch als ich. Bitte keine Schlauheiten, besonders wenn Sie sich nicht mal die Mühe nehmen zu prüfen entweder was Sie verkündigen richtig sei.

> There is not one sentence in the article about Paul Renner.

Daß Hitler die gebrochenen Schriften nicht mochte, zeigt Luidl an einem Beispiel: ein Wettbewerb für einen Urkunden-Entwurf. Hitler entscheidet sich für die Futura, eine serifenlose, moderne Schrift. Luidl führt dazu nichts weiter aus, dabei ist diese Geschichte hochinteressant und unterstreicht Hitlers modernen Geschmack. Die Futura war 1928 unter den Händen Paul Renners entstanden mit dem etwas absurden Anspruch, die Schrift dieser Zeit zu sein. […] Hitlers Leute, so Luidl, nannten Renner einen Kulturbolschewisten, machten da also keinen Unterschied, weil sie eigentlich der Fraktur anhingen. Hitler selbst differenzierte gewiß unbewußt zwischen Renner und Bauhaus, wenn er die Futura anderen Schriften vorzog und gegen das Bauhaus wetterte

SS. 2–3

Hrant — That’s what they call “die Deutsche Betroffenheit”.

But let’s us continue talking about type. Even Hermann Zapf drew a blackletter (his Gilgenhart), after the War. I notice a growing interest for the blackletter (Fraktur, Gotisch, Rundgotisch, Schwabacher) in the type world. Books are being published, in Germany, typepset in blackletter again.

Whee, van Krimpen’s type in digital! Now if I can only read Dutch :)

Speaking of Romain du Roi revival, I did make a topic about it here. Somebody — that I unfortunately don’t remember — also replied that he was in the process of digitizing it. Here’s to seeing it soon.

Lieber Ludwig,
ich bin froh, daß Sie besser deutsch verstehen und schreiben als ich englisch.

Ich kenne den Autor des Beitrages im PDF. Er ist ein guter Bleisatz-Freund und ein guter Kunde von mir. Wir haben fast täglich Kontakt über ein deutsches Typographen-Forum. Aus diesem Grund kenne ich auch seine Einstellung zu diesem Thema.

Ihr genanntes Beispiel zeigt eindeutig, daß Hitler die Fraktur ablehnt. Eben weil er sich stattdessen im Beispiel für die Futura entscheidet. Aber das bedeutet doch nicht, daß die Futura seine Lieblingsschrift ist.

If you ask me which font I like more:
Univers or Folio-Grotesk (I don’t like both) I’ld say: Folio.
Because its from K.F.Bauer. But this does not mean that I like the Folio.

Georg

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin

>Books are being published, in Germany, typepset in blackletter.

Tell me, show me. Blackletter for copytext, i would directly go to my local bookstore buying it. I don’t mean headlines in fraktur and FF Din for the copy ;)

@ Ludwig

You are thinking in stereotypes.
“The Germans” is as wrong as “The Americans”.

But its alright.
Would be more honest to ask me to leave instead of starting to flame me, mh? Question of style.

However: All the best for your stereotype futures, guys.

Georg

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin

> I notice a growing interest for the blackletter (Fraktur,
> Gotisch, Rundgotisch, Schwabacher) in the type world.

Indeed. But we’re just warming up, and laymen (you know,
the people with the money) barely have an inkling of it still.

> Blackletter for copytext

First, we need the fonts. Contemporary, highly functional ones.

> You are thinking in stereotypes.
> “The Germans” is as wrong as “The Americans”.

But then what about calling the TypeTable “very American” ? :-)
Stereotypes -like knives- exist for a good reason - it’s simply a
matter of using them right.

hhp

>First, we need the fonts. Contemporary, highly functional on
What does “contemporary” mean for you, in this case.
Do you talk about s.th. like “Yellow”, you showed me once...

Georg — Ich meinte nicht, alle Deutsche sind betroffen. Ich habe eine Menge, *nette* Freunde in Deutschland und Österreich und es wundert mich immer, daß fast alle — vor allem die etwa ältere Leute — eine unheimliche Angst haben für alles was der Vergangenheit anbetrifft. Spricht man denn nicht von der “deutschen Betroffenheit” um diese geistige Lage anzudeuten? Jedenfalls, ich verstehe das gar nicht; Ihr sollt ja stolz sein auf Ihrem großen Kulturschatz. Der Hitler hatte ja die Futura gemocht. Nun, was soll das? Das heißt doch nicht wir sollten allen nur deswegen die Schrift ablehnen? Bitte fühlen Sie sich nicht so schnell angegriffen. Wir Buchdruck-Drucker sind nicht ganz zahlreich, und sollten einander nicht abfallen weil wir die Geschichte anders verstehen.

Yellow is only marginally, and in fact unintentionally, Fraktur.
The closest thing to the “ideal” running around my head is Hans
Heitmann’s Fraktoer - a small sample can be seen here:
http://www.themicrofoundry.com/ss_fraktur2.html _
But it’s only a beginning attempt (for one thing it’s too chirographic).

hhp

Poms — Jacques Derrida, Meine Chancen, Berlin: Verlag Brinkmann & Bose, 1994. Forssman and de Jong show its opening page on p. 40 of their Detailtypografie (first edition).

I acknowledge that Derrida is not the most common author and likely the rehabilitation of blackletter is indeed a postmodernist phenomenon. But still, such a blatant citation of a typographic past, that for short was deemed to have been buried forever in the ruins of 1945… Nonetheless I don’t feel quite comfortable with blackletter for copytext, not because of its supposed reminiscences, but precisely because to me it’s nothing more than “la nostalgie postmoderne”. And I hate postmodernism!

> What does “contemporary” mean for you, in this case.

Something like this? http://www.underware.nl/site2/index.php3?id1=fakir&id2=overview

Blackliteral postmodernism, as I said.

> Jacques Derrida, Meine Chancen

If the blackletter is actually used for the
text and not just headings: image please.

BTW, if one wanted to mark a large stride in re-legitimizing blackletter, one would use it to set book about Nazi atrocities, or Jewish rights, or maybe even Yiddish.

Fakir: very nice. Not text.

hhp

Derrida was, as you probably know, a Jewish author.
-

He was?! A definite plus here. Cool.
Let me see if UCLA has this.

Those pilcrows are pretty strangely used eh?

hhp

Ludwig, UCLA does not have it, so I will again ask you for the favor
of a hi-res scan, of that page. But if you decline, no hard feelings.

hhp

@ ben_archer

A digital version of Element is available
http://www.romana-hamburg.de/fraktur6.htm

And some other “Neugothische Schriften” too, like Tannenberg, Gotenburg, Deutschland.

@ Poms
Are the Heltzel digitalizations realized professionally?
What do you think?

Georg

Preußisches Bleisatz-Magazin

Fascinating thread gentlemen.

Thank you Thomas for the link about Heltzel’s digital version of Element. Most useful, and previously unknown to me.

The alternative (and more loaded) term I’ve come across for ’Neugothische Schriften’ is ‘schaftstiefelgrotesks’ or ‘jackboot gothics’ – particularly in reference to the National, Tannenberg and Gotenburg you mention above. I understand some of what Georg says about this and I’m sympathetic to it (even if Hrant is not). For this reason I prefer your ’Neugothische Schriften’ which I roughly translate as ’modernised blackletter’. Element was perhaps the best attempt at this.

My own unofficial theory is that the blackletter types have been and continue to be rehabilitated via youth culture; nowadays we might not read it in books so much, but it’ll be splashed all over the t-shirt next to you. The old heavy metal and punk styles continue to get recycled – all my skater/punker students wouldn’t be seen dead in anything less than a really heavy fraktur... preferably printed black on black! (Getting them to actually read what it says might be the next challenge.)

From those students point of view – that I think Futura was/is a pinnacle of modernist achievement, and that I’m suspicious (hateful is not right) of postmodernism, just makes me look like an old fart... like Hitler. But I can live with that : )

> nowadays we might not read it in books so much, but
> it’ll be splashed all over the t-shirt next to you.

But I think and hope that its revival in the realm of conscious/display usage will naturally lead to its eventual re-use for subconscious/text - once we properly apply the element of subtelty, the key ingredient of text face design.

Postmodernism: don’t judge it based on the prototypical stunts by juveniles and hooligans that we saw in the 90s. To me, PoMo holds great promise (once we completely get over it as a fashion) because it embodies the human reality much better than Modernism, which is for circuit boards, not humans. Our teachers were wrong.

hhp

@ben_archer
I did use the term “Schaftstiefelgrotesk”, but i changed. Even if there was no reign of Nationalsocialism, there would be formmodels you could compare to those of the existing “Neugotische Schriften”.
Thesis:
I think the “strictness” and simplicity of the forms were influenced by the former Groteskschriften like Akzidenz Grotesk..., too. Even something like the “Bauhaus modernism” had influences on the development.
I think of, for example, Tannenberg (my favourite) as an excellent display fontface.

@Bleisetzer
I’ve only heard that Henzel digital fonts are “good” or “quite good”, whatever it means. I don’t expect opentype features and such. Only “proper” outlines, the right ligatures, long-s, etc. Mr. Henzel should offer PDF to download, maybe i get in contact with him.

Hi. Thomas, I think I agree with you that the forms would have changed regardless of the politics of the day. After all there have been rationalisms of the Gotische Schriften ever since Dürer. Thanks for sharing your favourite with us.

(Veering wildy off-topic) Hrant, I didn’t say I judged Postmodernism; merely that I’m suspicious of it. Had I judged it, I might have said that PoMo held great promise – as a fashion. Your appeal not to judge... begs the question, well, what are we to judge Postmodernism by? And guess what, every time the question gets framed, the terms of reference have moved... so that’s why I’m suspicious.

Most theories apply themselves more readily to circuit boards than to homo horribilis. But to sloganise reaction to any teacher’s viewpoint is perhaps to miss the fundamental point of education (a.k.a. find stuff out for yourself) Agreed?

Meanwhile I’ll call for a digital revival of Cheltenham Inline. It’s from ATF, so I guess M.F. Benton, but I don’t know the date. Maybe 1912? Those old guys. Sheeesh.

> what are we to judge Postmodernism by?

Its merits with respect to serving mankind.

> But to sloganise reaction to any teacher’s viewpoint is perhaps
> to miss the fundamental point of education (a.k.a. find stuff out
> for yourself) Agreed?

Is education really about finding your own way? I would actually say the opposite: it’s to learn how to behave in one’s environment - to meet the system’s expectations of what you should know. Personal discovery certainly does happen, but I think formal education sees that as a bug, not a feature. :-/ In fact the limits of formal education are parallel to those of Modernism: they both focus on the formal, the superficial, the mechanical. This is only half of our reality, and PoMo -if applied selflessly, instead of as a means of artistic expression- can be an invaluable link to the other half; I say “link” because I feel the other half is essentially out of our conscious reach, although I believe it’s what makes us most “real”.

—

Cheltenham rules.

hhp

Is education really about finding your own way?

It depends on the size of the class.
Because each child/student is different, each has to be educated differently (I forget which educationalist said that, but I would agree, although in practice it is possible to find similarities that are project-based and provide the same instruction — whether that’s considered training or education).

I had the privilege of teaching a class of 16 students, in a four-hour practicum session, and found that it was just about possible to give each student individual attention. Although some always ended up demanding more time, which is a dilemma; should the more able students allow the less able that extra time, or should everyone get the same time? Or are those who wheedle more time doing it for selfish or social reasons? Etc, etc.

So, in that 15 minutes, the teacher’s job is to get inside the student’s head and help them solve the design problem in a manner that results in personal growth, rather than just following what is establishment-rote, or trendy, or the way the student has always done it (lazy), or the way that would impress other students, or the way the teacher would do it, or the way that would score most marks, or look best in a portfolio.

Now, you could say that if the teacher takes such a personal approach, it is postmodern, because the intent is to decontextualize the design process. But on the other hand, the very notion of educating the individual is so very modern. As an alternative, the collaborative approach to design education is very hard to pull off, especially given the increasing hold of the performance principle in the sphere of art education. However, there are some who try, for instance with students working in teams on real-world projects for local communities.

Dear Ludwig,

I am surprised that no one has mentioned the roman seen in Il Manuale di Cottura of 1478. It was a constant reference for many punchcutters of the 17th century, yet it has strangely gone un-revived by modern designers. I believe that Johnathan Hoefler started a revival for a magazine a some point in the mid 1990s but the project took another turn. I have considered reviving this myself, but my corporate clients don’t like revivals very much. I examined the copy at St Bride Printing Library a few years back whilst I was at Typotechnica, but upon my last visit I was unable to locate it.

Perhaps one of you should look into it!

I would post some of my photos, but I can’t figure out this confounded system.

Sincerely,
Randolph T. Burke

Yes, images please!

hhp

To insert an image, just click “Insert image” under the editing box and follow the instructions. Max. width 600 px. For further details, check Forum guidelines.
(Actually it can be more than 600, we’d just have to scroll sideways.)

Hmmm. Much to think about here. Maybe learning is what we do for ourselves and education is what is there to keep us in our places. Maybe this is semantic hairsplitting, but the two are not always the same. When I go back to Hrant’s slogan I realise that many of my teachers were not wrong, but then they didn’t always reside in the classroom. So I must be meaning some wider concept of education here.

As for PoMo’s putative merits with respect to serving mankind. I’m not necessarily served better by postmodern typeface design, if that’s what you mean (and at this point we have to take into account those 90s hooligans). But at least I don’t have to introduce Modernism to anyone with an upfront disclaimer that they should disregard the early posturings of those 1920s juveniles... I mean, what were we going to do? wait for Modernism to ’mature’? I disagree with the claim that Modernism’s focus was (on the) superficial. It’s enough for me to note that ’serious’ design companies like the Dyson Corporation still use Futura as an advertising collateral typeface, 80 years later. I just don’t see that happening with Template Gothic. Yet.

Meanwhile I’ll join the call for Randolph to post images of the 1478 roman. And I’d like to see this classic in digital format; Granby, designer(s) unknown – possibly based on Johnston’s Underground Lettering. Stephenson Blake Foundry. About 1930. Elsner & Flake have done this, but I think their family is incomplete. Apparently it’s also the basis of Jeremy Tankard’s Wayfarer.

While we’re on the subject of serving mankind, I found this gem on John Maeda’s Simplicity Blog.

These are two maxims that distinguishes the technologist from the humanist:
Technologist: I do, because I can.
Humanist: I do, because I care.

I interpreted the former as PoMo, and the latter as ’matured’ PoMo or Humanism.

Technology, he said, can create progress. And hasn’t PoMo does the same thing to typography? But it’s certainly not justifiable to do things just because one could. Egoistically, if you will.

’Matured’ PoMo, on the other hand, strives to serve others while still maintaining the same “I do” attitude of experimentation and playfulness.

It’s all about “humanized technology” like Mr. Maeda put it, or in our context, “experimentation that serve others”.

I agree somewhat, but to refine it I would say that the hooligan PoMoist is “I do, because I am” (as in self-centered, yes) while the mature PoMoist is “I do, because I can’t fully know” (as in there’s always something new to create). Hmmm, not too good - let me try another way. The hooligan PoMoist wants dynamism/change because the establishment shunns him and his -valid- instincts and he hates that, while the mature PoMoist wants dynamism/change because he knows the establishment is full of it, even though he doesn’t know exactly what’s going on either, but that’s OK because he admits it, plus nobody really knows anyway, it’s just that some people act like they do, and they suck.

Modernism is about Control. PoMo is about relinquishing control.

hhp

Hmm, your thoughts about the hooligan (pardon the term) and the mature PoMoists are interesting. I have a hard time distinguishing between the two, though, especially when you tried to explain it the second time around.

For instance:
- Being shunned by the establishment, and
- Knowing that the establishment is full of themselves
Is an effect and cause of PoMo in general, don’t you think? You know that they’re full of themselves, so that’s why you’re alienated by them. A call for dynamism/change, then, is a natural response to that. Every PoMoist has to have that.

I do like your first two statements, though, when you distinguish PoMoists by their intent. One do it to please himself (I would call this, pardon my term once again, “masturbatory”), the other do it in an honest passion for learning and discovery.

I think that your point of view is a great angle of looking at PoMo.

Personally, I think that the hooligan wants change for its own sake (which is not bad, by the way, just poorly defined), while the mature wants change because he knows that without change, he won’t progress any further.

The subject of control and relinguishing control is mighty interesting, too, and as I said, is yet another angle of looking at the subject.

Ludwig (or I guess anybody else who has it), I’d highly appreciate a hi-res scan of the Derrida setting shown in the post of 21 September, 2006 - 6:08pm, if possible.

hhp

Hrant — This really isn’t something special. Just good old Alte Schwabacher (don’t know whether the one from URW or Berthold; let’s hope its not the BQ ;-), used for body text.

Forssman & de Jong write: “Eine Anwendung, wie geschaffen zum Beweis, daß gebrochene Schrift lebt, solange es unvoreingenommene Typografen gibt.” That designer was Günter Bose, who says to have become a blackletter enthusiast while reading Albert Kapr.

The application and use of the Schwabacher is correct, for that manner: ligatures, long s etc. The designer quotes early sixteenth century typography by putting the title right in the body text, on the first page immediately after the end papers and by consequently setting CHancen (instead of Chancen), as was proper use for the word GOtt.

This quotation mania is all too pomo for me. But quite appropriate for setting a text by the upper pomo guru Derrida. It wouldn’t surprise me that the designer thought of the Judenschwabacher anecdote, when choosing a proper typeface for this Jewish author. Again, that kitschy pomo irony!

[Please download the file soon, so that I can delete it from this thread — it’s consuming to much memory and bandwith.]

Wow, I think that must be the largest image ever posted to Typophile... I can hear people cursing me. :-/ But as far as I’m concerned: thank you thank you!! :-) And yes, I’ve downloaded it. But I don’t think removing the reference from your post will get rid of it from Typophile’s server...

> This really isn’t something special.

Well, not the font - but the contemporary usage for text certainly is!
I’ve been looking for a while.

But wait a second: just to check, when you talk about “quotes”, you don’t mean that the blackletter was in fact only used for peripheral material and not the whole body text, do you?

hhp

Unfortunately there is all of a sudden just “reply”. I can’t “edit” and hence not delete the image. So I guess our moderators will have to. (I’m sorry for consuming your server’s space.)

> you don’t mean that the blackletter was in fact only used for peripheral material

I don’t. As you can see yourself, the complete body text is set in Schwabacher. As a matter of fact, it’s the other way around: it’s the marginal notes that are set in Antiqua (Janson?).

By “quoting” I meant that nasty pomo habit of not being able to invent something from it’s own and thus lending or even plagiarising innovations from elder traditions. I do not mean to say that we shouldn’t look to tradition, on the contrary, but we should do so with respect and with a meaningful purpose, that it is with a practical function in mind. PoMo quotes/cites the givens of the past only with nihilistic irony, playing around with functionality that was devised to a proper means and with sincerity.

>kitschy pomo irony

Even more so because Derrida is a Jewish author like George Allen is the Jewish Senator from Virginia.~

I don’t get it, why is Derrida not “really Jewish”? Is it like Thomas Friedman and Mordecai Vanunu aren’t “really Jewish”? I assume you have an official body that decides these things...

Ludwig, the PoMo you speak of is the PoMo that has been,
not the PoMo that could -and should- be. Please see above.

hhp

>Derrida not “really Jewish”

Derrida is Jewish by ancestry, but was raised in a French Algerian milieu that wanted to distance itself from Judaism—the same background as Senator George Allen’s mother. And it seems that he knew little of Judaism and especially found nothing to admire or adopt consciously from Jewish religion or tradition. Unlike Allen’s mother, Derrida never hid his Jewish ancestry. But neither did he learn anything about Judaism or affiliate with anything Jewish.

’Judaism’ is a term that labels many things: an ethnic group, a religion, a culture, a community, a nation. They are all different, but overlap. Some people belong in many categories, some in a few. I am just saying that if you are only are Jewish by ancestry and otherwise don’t belong to any of the other categories and say you couldn’t care less, I don’t count you as Jewish. So for me neither Derrida nor Senator Allen are Jewish. Others will have other views, and that is fine with me.

Here is a review of a book about Derrida’s Judaism that shares my opinion.

There is not one official body but many, and they disagree about who is Jewish—typically Jewish :)

You seem to want to exclude huge chunks of your own people. Considering everything (like the concern that Arabs will one day outnumber Jews in Israel) this doesn’t seem very smart. And what about who’s American? I suspect your standards there are diametrically opposed... As for George Allen, you should ask yourself why he -as a US Senator- is so intent on being considered Jewish. Is it all due to him being an idiot?

> ‘Judaism’ is a term that labels many things: an ethnic group,
> a religion, a culture, a community, a nation. They are all
> different, but overlap. Some people belong in many categories,
> some in a few.

But the lion’s share of the Venn diagram is the religion.

hhp

>he -as a US Senator- is so intent on being considered Jewish

Hrant, you must be reading one of your usual ’reliable sources’.

According to the unreliable sewage we read here in Virginia, such as the Washington Post, and what we hear on TV from Allen himself, Allen considers himself a Christian, and is one.

He reacted with embarassment when his Jewish ancestry was ’outed’ and accused a reporter of ’casting aspersions’. The Forward Jewish newspaper in New York first pointed out that his mother came from an old Tunesian Jewish family. As a result of then being asked about it, he this month asked his mother, and she finally admitted her Jewish ancestry to him.

>the lion’s share of the Venn diagram is the religion.

Well, if you ask American Reform Jews, they would probably agree. But if you ask Israelis, most of whom are very anti-clerical and very any of whom are anti-religious, they would vehemently disagree.

That’s right, I forgot that you own all the “reliable sources”.
And I do mean own in the literal sense.

> ... they would vehemently disagree.

But they don’t count as Jews in your book anyway.
On the other hand at least they believe strongly in torture:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6063386.stm#table

hhp

BTW, in one spot that Derrida page has two pilcrows in a row - something I hadn’t seen before. Does that mean some greater separation than just a paragraph break, like maybe a new section (albeit sans title)?

hhp

It’s in the third row, *after the book title*. I guess this is to signify that here the book begynneth. A greater separation, indeed: not a paragraph break, but a page or even section break.

Oh, the title is inline?! Niiice.

hhp