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Sunday, October 10, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
My typographer
Information about the font designer Günter Gerhard Lange and his typefaces.
Günter Gerhard Lange was born in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, Germany, in 1921. His education was interrupted with the outbreak of the second world war when he was called into military service. Only a year later he suffered a serious injury, and the subsequent loss of his leg lead to a medical discharge from the German Army.
In 1941 he embarked on a masters course at the Academy of Graphic Arts and the Book Trade in Leipzig. He studied calligraphy, typesetting, and printing with Professor Georg Belwe, and drawing, etching and lithography with Professor Hans Theo Richter. On completing his course Lange took the position of assistant to Professor Walter Tiemann at the Leipzig Institute. During the early post-war years Lange worked as a freelance artist in Leipzig.
In 1949 he moved to Berlin and enrolled at the University of Pictorial Arts, studying freelance art with Professor Paul Strecker and drawing with Professor Hans Ullman. On graduation on returned to freelance work with his first major client the typeface foundry, Berthold AG. He was promoted to artistic director in 1961 a position which he held until 1990.
He was not only the designer of classic typefaces such as Akzidenz-Grotesk BQ, Berthold Bodoni Old Face BQ, and Imago BQ, but also a communicator and teacher who was an inspiration to many young type designers. After ten years of retirement from his position as Berthold AG's artistic director, Lange has recently resumed his design activities. Digital fonts based on his earlier and recent designs (Bodoni Old Face, Imago, Arena New, Whittingham, and others) are now being offered as part of a "GGL Exklusiv" series by Berthold Types Ltd, Chicago, a successor to H Berthold AG. He died in 2008 at the age of 87.
Berthold is a name long associated with type design. H. Berthold AG was one of the largest and most successful type foundries in the world for most of the modern typographic era. Established in 1858 by Hermann Berthold and based in Berlin, the company played a key role in the introduction of major new typefaces and was a successful player in the development of typesetting machines.
The H. Berthold foundry's most celebrated family of typefaces is arguably Akzidenz-Grotesk (released 1896), an early sans-serif which prefigured by half a century the release of enormously popular neo-grotesque faces such as Helvetica. In 1950, type designer Günter Gerhard Lange embarked upon a long affiliation with the company, for which he designed various original typefaces, including Concorde and Imago, and oversaw the foundry's revivals of classic faces such as Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, and Bodoni.
Beset by financial troubles, H. Berthold AG ceased operations in 1993. Berthold Types Ltd., a Chicago-based company, one of the companies which claimed to be the copyright owner of Berthold fonts, took over distribution of the Berthold digital type library and has released several new typefaces under the direction of Lange, who had retired in 1990, but now serves as artistic consultant to the new Berthold.
Günter Gerhard Lange was born in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, Germany, in 1921. His education was interrupted with the outbreak of the second world war when he was called into military service. Only a year later he suffered a serious injury, and the subsequent loss of his leg lead to a medical discharge from the German Army.
In 1941 he embarked on a masters course at the Academy of Graphic Arts and the Book Trade in Leipzig. He studied calligraphy, typesetting, and printing with Professor Georg Belwe, and drawing, etching and lithography with Professor Hans Theo Richter. On completing his course Lange took the position of assistant to Professor Walter Tiemann at the Leipzig Institute. During the early post-war years Lange worked as a freelance artist in Leipzig.
In 1949 he moved to Berlin and enrolled at the University of Pictorial Arts, studying freelance art with Professor Paul Strecker and drawing with Professor Hans Ullman. On graduation on returned to freelance work with his first major client the typeface foundry, Berthold AG. He was promoted to artistic director in 1961 a position which he held until 1990.
He was not only the designer of classic typefaces such as Akzidenz-Grotesk BQ, Berthold Bodoni Old Face BQ, and Imago BQ, but also a communicator and teacher who was an inspiration to many young type designers. After ten years of retirement from his position as Berthold AG's artistic director, Lange has recently resumed his design activities. Digital fonts based on his earlier and recent designs (Bodoni Old Face, Imago, Arena New, Whittingham, and others) are now being offered as part of a "GGL Exklusiv" series by Berthold Types Ltd, Chicago, a successor to H Berthold AG. He died in 2008 at the age of 87.
Berthold is a name long associated with type design. H. Berthold AG was one of the largest and most successful type foundries in the world for most of the modern typographic era. Established in 1858 by Hermann Berthold and based in Berlin, the company played a key role in the introduction of major new typefaces and was a successful player in the development of typesetting machines.
The H. Berthold foundry's most celebrated family of typefaces is arguably Akzidenz-Grotesk (released 1896), an early sans-serif which prefigured by half a century the release of enormously popular neo-grotesque faces such as Helvetica. In 1950, type designer Günter Gerhard Lange embarked upon a long affiliation with the company, for which he designed various original typefaces, including Concorde and Imago, and oversaw the foundry's revivals of classic faces such as Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, and Bodoni.
Beset by financial troubles, H. Berthold AG ceased operations in 1993. Berthold Types Ltd., a Chicago-based company, one of the companies which claimed to be the copyright owner of Berthold fonts, took over distribution of the Berthold digital type library and has released several new typefaces under the direction of Lange, who had retired in 1990, but now serves as artistic consultant to the new Berthold.
Akzidenz-Grotesk
Akzidenz-Grotesk is a grotesque (early sans-serif) typeface originally released by the H. Berthold AG type foundry in 1898 under the name Accidenz-Grotesk.[1] It was the first sans serif typeface to be widely used and influenced many later neo-grotesque typefaces. It was obviously based on faces already offered by other foundries, some of which were later taken over by Berthold. It was mainly a marketing and naming success. It was used as a text font in Europe, especially Switzerland, until being supplanted by Univers and Helvetica, although in recent years it has made a comeback.The design of Akzidenz-Grotesk was theorized to be derived from Walbaum or Didot, as demonstrated by the similar font metrics when the serifs are removed.[2] However, the font family also included fonts made by other foundries, such as the c. 1880 typeface Royal Grotesk Light from the Berlin foundry Ferdinand Theinhardt Schriftgiesserei[3], designed by Ferdinand Theinhardt for the scientific publications of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. FTS also supplied the regular, medium and bold weights of the typeface. While Hermann Berthold took over Theinhardt's Berlin foundry in 1908, it wasn't until the fall of the Prussian monarchy in 1918 that Royal Grotesk was published as part of the Akzidenz-Grotesk font family and renamed Akzidenz-Grotesk Condensed.[4]
Contemporary versions of Akzidenz-Grotesk descend from a late-1950s project, directed by Günter Gerhard Lange at Berthold, to enlarge the typeface family, adding a larger character set, but retaining all of the idiosyncrasies of the 1898 face. Under the direction of Günter Gerhard Lange, he had designed 33 font styles to the Akzidenz-Grotesk family, including AG Extra (1958), AG Extra Bold (1966) and AG Super (1968), AG Super Italic (2001) and Extra Bold italic (2001).[5]
In May 2006, Berthold announced the release of Akzidenz-Grotesk in OpenType format, under the name Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro. The Pro family offers extended language support for Central European, Baltic and Turkish as well as Welsh, archaic Danish and Esperanto and is available in CFF PostScript OpenType. Berthold also released Akzidenz-Grotesk Standard, which includes glyphs of Western European character set, in both PostScript and TrueType flavored OpenType.[6]In May 2007 Berthold announced the release of Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro+, which includes Cyrillic and Greek characters.[7]Akzidenz-Grotesk and Georgia are the official fonts of the American Red Cross. Akzidenz-Grotesk is used on the national logo and national guidelines require the font to be used on all chapter logos. All American Red Cross publications must be printed in Akzidenz-Grotesk or Georgia fonts.[8]
Akzidenz-Grotesk is sometimes at first glance mistaken for the Helvetica or Univers typefaces. The similarities of Helvetica and Akzidenz-Grotesk are apparent, but the subtle differences include the uppercase and lowercase C and the uppercase G, J, R and Q. Aside from the subtle differences in these individual letters, Miedinger's primary change to Akzidenz-Grotesk is Helvetica's higher x-height, the distance from the baseline to the height of the lowercase letter x. The general effect is that Helvetica appears more oblong while Akzidenz-Grotesk maintains circular counters and bowls. Both Helvetica and Univers are more regular and have a greater consistency of stroke weight.
San Serif Fonts:
In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the Latin word "sine", via the French word sans, meaning "without".
In print, sans-serif fonts are more typically used for headlines than for body text.[1] The conventional wisdom holds that serifs help guide the eye along the lines in large blocks of text. Sans-serifs, however, have acquired considerable acceptance for body text in Europe.
Sans-serif fonts have become the de facto standard for body text on-screen, especially online. This is partly because interlaced displays may show twittering on the fine details of the horizontal serifs. Additionally, the low resolution of digital displays in general can make fine details like serifs disappear or appear too large.Sans-serif letter forms can be found in Latin, Etruscan, and Greek inscriptions, for as early as 5th century BC.[2] The sans serif forms had been used on stoichedon Greek inscriptions.Bytheir nature, San Serif typefaces have strong geometrical form. That aspectof this category can make it more tiring for a person to read large blocks oftext set in a San Serif face. With careful techniques this can be avoided. Adjustleading and use the right weights that are designed for reading paragraphs, usually referred to as roman or normal weight. San Serif fonts are versatileand multitudes of weights and widths make them flexible.
Sans-serif fonts are the most appropriate family for use online, as their simpler letter-forms remain readable at low resolutions; whereas serif fonts need more pixels to display their extra details. Sans-serif fonts are also well-suited to headings, as they are easily readable from a distance.Well-known sans-serif fonts include Helvetica (known as Arial on Windows), Trebuchet MS, Lucida Grande, and the ever-popular Verdana. All of these fonts are clean and will usually work well even at small sizes. Below is an example of text set in Trebuchet MS:Pairing a sans-serif font like Verdana for headings with a serif font like Georgia for body text will often look very attractive.
Grotesque:
The word "Grotesque", or "Grotesk" in German, is also frequently used as a synonym for sans-serif in typography. At other times, it is used (along with "Neo-Grotesque", "Humanist", "Lineal", and "Geometric") to describe a particular style or subset of sans-serif typefaces. The origin of this association can be traced back to English typefounder William Thorowgood, who first introduced the term "grotesque" and in 1835 produced 7-line pica grotesque—the first sans-serif typeface containing actual lowercase letters. An alternate etymology is possibly based on the original reaction of other typographers to such a strikingly featureless typeface.[11]
Works Cited
Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. Hartley & Marks: 1992
Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006.
Williams, Robin The Non-Designer's Type Book : Insights and Techniques for Creating Professional-Level Type
The Sans Serif Typefaces. Linotype GmbH.
Contemporary versions of Akzidenz-Grotesk descend from a late-1950s project, directed by Günter Gerhard Lange at Berthold, to enlarge the typeface family, adding a larger character set, but retaining all of the idiosyncrasies of the 1898 face. Under the direction of Günter Gerhard Lange, he had designed 33 font styles to the Akzidenz-Grotesk family, including AG Extra (1958), AG Extra Bold (1966) and AG Super (1968), AG Super Italic (2001) and Extra Bold italic (2001).[5]
In May 2006, Berthold announced the release of Akzidenz-Grotesk in OpenType format, under the name Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro. The Pro family offers extended language support for Central European, Baltic and Turkish as well as Welsh, archaic Danish and Esperanto and is available in CFF PostScript OpenType. Berthold also released Akzidenz-Grotesk Standard, which includes glyphs of Western European character set, in both PostScript and TrueType flavored OpenType.[6]In May 2007 Berthold announced the release of Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro+, which includes Cyrillic and Greek characters.[7]Akzidenz-Grotesk and Georgia are the official fonts of the American Red Cross. Akzidenz-Grotesk is used on the national logo and national guidelines require the font to be used on all chapter logos. All American Red Cross publications must be printed in Akzidenz-Grotesk or Georgia fonts.[8]
Akzidenz-Grotesk is sometimes at first glance mistaken for the Helvetica or Univers typefaces. The similarities of Helvetica and Akzidenz-Grotesk are apparent, but the subtle differences include the uppercase and lowercase C and the uppercase G, J, R and Q. Aside from the subtle differences in these individual letters, Miedinger's primary change to Akzidenz-Grotesk is Helvetica's higher x-height, the distance from the baseline to the height of the lowercase letter x. The general effect is that Helvetica appears more oblong while Akzidenz-Grotesk maintains circular counters and bowls. Both Helvetica and Univers are more regular and have a greater consistency of stroke weight.
San Serif Fonts:
In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the Latin word "sine", via the French word sans, meaning "without".
In print, sans-serif fonts are more typically used for headlines than for body text.[1] The conventional wisdom holds that serifs help guide the eye along the lines in large blocks of text. Sans-serifs, however, have acquired considerable acceptance for body text in Europe.
Sans-serif fonts have become the de facto standard for body text on-screen, especially online. This is partly because interlaced displays may show twittering on the fine details of the horizontal serifs. Additionally, the low resolution of digital displays in general can make fine details like serifs disappear or appear too large.Sans-serif letter forms can be found in Latin, Etruscan, and Greek inscriptions, for as early as 5th century BC.[2] The sans serif forms had been used on stoichedon Greek inscriptions.Bytheir nature, San Serif typefaces have strong geometrical form. That aspectof this category can make it more tiring for a person to read large blocks oftext set in a San Serif face. With careful techniques this can be avoided. Adjustleading and use the right weights that are designed for reading paragraphs, usually referred to as roman or normal weight. San Serif fonts are versatileand multitudes of weights and widths make them flexible.
Sans-serif fonts are the most appropriate family for use online, as their simpler letter-forms remain readable at low resolutions; whereas serif fonts need more pixels to display their extra details. Sans-serif fonts are also well-suited to headings, as they are easily readable from a distance.Well-known sans-serif fonts include Helvetica (known as Arial on Windows), Trebuchet MS, Lucida Grande, and the ever-popular Verdana. All of these fonts are clean and will usually work well even at small sizes. Below is an example of text set in Trebuchet MS:Pairing a sans-serif font like Verdana for headings with a serif font like Georgia for body text will often look very attractive.
Grotesque:
The word "Grotesque", or "Grotesk" in German, is also frequently used as a synonym for sans-serif in typography. At other times, it is used (along with "Neo-Grotesque", "Humanist", "Lineal", and "Geometric") to describe a particular style or subset of sans-serif typefaces. The origin of this association can be traced back to English typefounder William Thorowgood, who first introduced the term "grotesque" and in 1835 produced 7-line pica grotesque—the first sans-serif typeface containing actual lowercase letters. An alternate etymology is possibly based on the original reaction of other typographers to such a strikingly featureless typeface.[11]
Works Cited
Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. Hartley & Marks: 1992
Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006.
Williams, Robin The Non-Designer's Type Book : Insights and Techniques for Creating Professional-Level Type
The Sans Serif Typefaces. Linotype GmbH.
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