Planegg
2—
R esearc h repo rt
7 “Mr. Behrens’ Type”
10 Mr. Behrens and the Jugendstil
12 Fraktur vs. Antiqua
14 Behrens-Style
16 Notes and References
Planegg a r ev i val by co l i n m . ford
fig. 1—Portrait of Peter Behrens
“Mr. Behrens’ Type”
When I show my revival typeface, which I am dubbing Planegg, to most people, they don’t know what to make of it. They tend to think it seems vaguely “old”, occupying a typographic no-man’s land that they have been taken to only on rare occasions. Only Jan Willem was not taken aback by my attempts to play Dr. Frankenstein while reviving a typeface that most agree should have stayed dead; Jan Willem just grinned in the way he does, studied it for a second and said, “Oh, you’re doing Mr. Behrens’ type.” Who was this Mr. Behrens, (fig. 1) why did he create this most peculiar looking hybrid, and is there a mob of pitchfork-wielding peasants in my future, calling for the death of the monster I’ve reanimated? Let’s find out together.
Fig. 2—Promotional card featuring Behrens-Scrift Mr. Behrens’ house, which he designed. Circa 1920.
3
Mr. Behrens and the Jugendstil
Mr. Peter Behrens (1868–1940) was one of Germany’s best known architects, and has been credited with creating the world’s first corporate brand with is work for AEG, a German electrical supply company, from 1907 to 1914.A (Fig. 3) He would eventually go on to teach some of the most important Modernists of the 20th Century, including Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. However, Before his career as a successful architect and brand man, he was an just barely making it as a fine artist. He studied at various art schools across Germany, apprenticed, dabbled in the isms of his day, created woodcuts and tempera paintings, and finally came upon the Arts and Crafts movement around the late 1890s. The movement’s preference for the organic and the handmade intrigued him. Around this time, “His activity as a painter gradually declined,” as he renounced the Fine Arts in favor of the so-called “Applied Arts” including working in new media such as, “porcelain, glass and furniture.”B As an extension of this contemporary enthusiasm for Nietzschean “total art”, many German artists including Behrens entered the typeface design field. This group of newcomers to the field were known as Künstlerschriften (“artist type
Fig. 3—AEG Logo. 1907
4 — Research
fig. 4—possibly third edition of the Behrensschrift type specimen. circa 1905–10. Overleaf: fig. 5—original sketches by peter behrens, ink or guache on four boards. circa 1900.
designers”) in German, and this period of influx marked, “The first time in which former fine artists entered the area of type design, without knowing traditional techniques or materials... [and] whose principal interests perhaps lay elsewhere.”C Behrens, like others, was swept up in this desire to create typefaces, and like many others, found willing publishers in Rudhard’sche Gießerei.D Many traditional foundries would not accept Mr. Behrens’ type as-is, and insisted upon modifications he was not willing to make . Behrens once wrote to a friend, “I’ve experienced the most depressing things with my type... All those who have an opinion to air on matters of typography naturally find it ‘outstanding,’ but they would like to have this or that altered... What do you think? Do you perhaps know a founder who has eyes for the coming style of our time?”E
5
Fraktur vs. Antiqua
In the era that Behrens was designing his typeface, there was a typographic sea change that was about overtake the German people. There was a conflict between those who thought that Germany should continue using the Fraktur types that almost every German text was set in, (fig. 6) and the “new” Antiqua types that the rest of Western Europe had long been employing. The early 20th Century was a time of political upheaval and economic unrest for Germany and “letterform-style became a symptom of the continuing search for a German cultural voice.”F Peter Behrens, with the design of Behrens-Schrift, weighed the two sides equally and endeavored
Fig. 6—German newspaper with fraktur type. 1895.
8 — Research
Fig. 7—mr. behrens’ diagram of the evolution of the “a” from medieval times to the 19th century. He particularly loathes the increase in ornamentation. From the Behrens-schrift introduction. 1902.
to find a new letterform that was new, but was rooted deeply in the tradition of the German people. He detested the Fraktur with its “garish embellishments” but recognized its ancestor, the “gothic script”, for its role in uniting the German People for hundreds of years. So, in an unmistakably Noordzij-esque manner, to create something that he would consider to be “in the style of our time”, he decides to return to the one thing that united both scripts—the broad nib pen.G (Fig 3) “Behrens equated the pen-derivation with the integrity and formality of letterforms,” and thus decided that the pen was to be the basis of any worthy typeface, especially his.H
Above all, with this broad nib-based typeface with gothic proportions, Mr. Behrens wanted to achieve the most modern of forms. The flourishes of the late 19th Century Fraktur, he writes, “irreverently deny any artistic principle of the construction,” and urges that the German designers of his time to “throw off superficial trinkets and replace them with practical objects of high quality, which clearly display their utility and indicate their usability and efficiency” in the new century.I
9
BehrensStyle
It is not an understatement in the least to say that Behrens had high hopes for his first typeface. In his introduction to the Behrens-Schrift specimen he talks about the difficulties of “inventing a new style of writing” which would be suitable to “read the majestic language of Nietzsche in.”AJ “Behrens’ statements in his Behrens-Schrift preface reflect the serious nature of the man and his intentions for the type as a piece of everyday art,” and to update the look of the language of the German people to match the modern times.AA
With all his talk of reduction of his hated flourishes however, it is almost a shock to open up the and see decorative borders and intricate initial caps. (fig. 9) Indeed, Behrens spent almost as much time on the ornaments as the type itself. AB Though visually incongruous with his words, these details were, to him, important references to the illuminated manuscripts that also contained the medieval “gothic scripts” that influenced his design, and were a further attempt to show that he was going “back to basics” in a way.AC Still, the references were confusing, and one can’t help seeing a disconnect between the type they are presented with, and the type that Behrens describes in his preface. Chris Burke argues that Mr. Behrens was a man in conflict with himself. On one hand, he wanted to
10 — Research
Fig. 8—colorful illustrations and floral borders found in the behrens-schrift specimen. 1902.
modernize the type of the German people, removing the style of the “century of materialism” from the Fraktur, but on the other hand he was bogged down with the style of his own time. Burke concludes that even though the lettering on Behrens’ architecture later in his life were more conservative than his Jugendstil-laden typefaces, Mr. Behrens was unable to “stifle his powerful Kunstwollen,” or “artistic will”, causing him to ultimately fail in his goals to create a new German style that was both usable and efficient.AD In a way, the typeface that I chose for this project was a failed experiment—a sort of typeface designed to be timely and timeless at the same time. In the end, Behrens-Schrift was only popular, mostly among traditionalist book artists, for a couple of decades until the Second World War.AE However confused and antiquated Behrens-Schrift seems, its charming, quirky, Schriftkünstler forms called out to me, and I decided that this monster deserved to be stitched together again and given another shot at life.
Fig. 9—An example of the intricate, two-color initial caps designed together with Behrensschrift. 1902.
11
Notes and References
a “AEG - 100 Years of Inspiration.” AEG - Welcome to the World of AEG. Web. 24 Jan. 2011. <http://www.aeg. com/node367.asp>. b Windsor, Alan. “Early Life and Career.” Peter Behrens: Architect and Designer. London: Architectural, 1981. p11. Print.
tions as Pan, Simplicissimus, and the eponymous Jugend. E Letter from Behrens to Diederichs, 17 May 1900. Eugen Diederichs, Selbstzeugnisse und Briefe von Zeitgenossen, Düsseldorf and Cologne, Diederichs, 1967, pp111-13. F Burke, Chris. p26.
c Burke, Chris. “Peter Behrens and the German Letter: Type Design and Architectural Lettering.” Journal of Design History 5.1 (1992): p26. Print.
G Behrens, Peter. “Von der Entwicklung der Schrift! (On the Development of the Type!)” October 1902. German, English trans. by Chris d Rudhard’sche Gießerei, later renamed Burke. Schriftgießerei Gebrüder Klingspor, h Burke, Chris. p21. took in many of the new Künstlerschriften, including Behrens’ friend i Behrens, Peter. Otto Eckmann, designer of EckmannSchrift. Eckmann’s type and Behrens’, aj Behrens, Peter. being the first two typefaces pubaa Burke, Chris. p30. lished by Rudhard’sche Gießerei were ab Burke, Chris. p23. often marketed side by side. Other foundries followed Rudhard’sche ac Burke, Chris. p23. Gießerei’s lead, and Germany was ad Burke, Chris. p31. soon flush with new, expressive typefaces, fit for headline and text in such popular Jugendstil-era publica-
12 — Research
ae Burke, Chris. p23.
Wor k pro ces s & s pecime n
19 My Research
20 My Wild Ideas
21 Two Previous Revivals
22 Character Comparisons
23 Size and Detail Comparisons
24 Spread Comparison
26 Text Setting Example
27 Planegg Character Set
28 OpenType Features
29 Conclusion
30 C0lophon
Planegg a r ev i val by co l i n m . ford
fig. 10â&#x20AC;&#x201D;My research at the klingspor library
My Research
My research began immediately after I had picked up Planegg (the book) in September. Initial internet searching turned up the aforementioned digital revivals and the fact that Behrens had worked with the Klingspor foundry in Offenbach am Main. At the Koninklijke Bibliotheek I was only able to find information about Klingspor in German—a language that I cannot even begin to speak or read—which will set the tone for most of my research process. I got my first look at Behrens-Schrift in a Klingspor general specimen at the University of Amsterdam’s special collections, but I decided that I needed more of the real thing and booked train tickets to Frankfurt to see the materials in the Klingspor library.
Schrift, and the considerations that the punchcutter took when cutting the type for small sizes. Many of the flourishes and details were eliminated at small sizes, making the smallest size surprisingly simple and readable. This realization would ultimately have an impact upon me months later when I was struggling to find a solution and a thesis for my typeface.
Though I found my solution in the Klingspor library, I also found my problem: before I left, Helga gave me a copy of the Chris Burke paper on Peter Behrens. In the footnotes, the paper included a translation of the introduction to the Behrens-Schrift specimen that Peter Behrens wrote in 1902 on his intentions for his typeface (I summarize his ideas in the research Once at the Klingspor library, I got section). As much as it helped to to see the most fantastic things; the know the designer’s original thoughts librarian, Helga Horschig, brought and theories, it would prove troubleout example after example from the some in the weeks ahead as I would stacks, and I could barely keep up struggle to reconcile his words with with photographing them all. I got to his designs. Reading his words on the see the slight variations in design that train back to The Hague, I felt then took place over the life of Behrensthat I knew too much.
15
My Wild Ideas
After I got back from Offenbach, I took longer than I should have deciding upon which direction to go with my revival. I had gotten into a trap before with my previous typeface where I just started to design without a specific direction in mind and I just wound up changing my entire direction every week or so. I can see now that I was paralyzed by that experience in a way, and I wound up over-thinking the beginning of this typeface. Knowing the thoughts and intentions of Mr. Behrens was overwhelming in a way, and it convinced me that I should not just revive his forms, but revive his ideas as well. I decided that I should take his ideas, formulated in the Jugendstil age, and apply them to today to get the form of my typeface. This decision centered around one of his most famous quotes, “One of the most eloquent means of expressing the style of any epoch is through its letterforms. After architecture, they probably give the most characteristic picture of a time and the best evi-
16 — Work Process and Specimen
dence of the state of a nation’s spiritual development.” I extended this idea to music as well, as when I, in my 21st Century mindset, think of things that define an epoch, music weighs pretty heavily in my assessment. In the 1902, recorded sound was in its infancy and would not have colored Behrens’ assessments of past epochs as it does for us today. We all know the aural hallmarks of specific decades pretty well: for the 1970s it was the disco beat, for the 1980s it was the synthesizer, and for the 1990s it was the cut together samples used by a nascent hip-hop scene. I took a guess and decided the hallmark of the decade we just left behind would be the Auto-Tune device used by hip-hop vocalists to make their voice sound robotic. Taking this idea further, I decided that I would try to remix and Auto-Tune Mr. Behrens’ typeface, making it seem contemporary. Tests that I made were neither formally or philosophically fulfilling. I could not apply my idea correctly to
Two Previous Revivals
the typeface medium without making it formally less interesting. I gave up on it, and retreated back to the beginning of the assignment. Seeing that this typeface was festooned with the style of its time, created in the political and artistic environment of its time, I decided that building style upon the style that was already there was counterproductive to my goal of contemporizing the typeface. Instead I should be distilling the typeface down to its core, stripping most of its style away, leaving something that is essentially timeless. I remembered and again looked to the small sizes that I encountered at the Klingspor library for my influences, seeing that they are the most formally pure version of Behrens-Schrift, and I built my project with simplification in mind.
The day that I showed the class my book with Behrens-Schrift I learned of two other previous revivalsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;one by URW and another that was being given away for free on free font websites. The free one, predictably, had auto-traced outlines and missing a good amount of characters. The URW version by Ralph M. Unger was better and had invented semi-usable forms that probably had never existed in the original, but in the end the forms of the letters were rationalized and sharpened in a way that I did not find appealing. Both were, in the scope of things, fairly recent and further searching turned up no revivals that had been made before 2000. Finally, both seemed to be based upon the version of the typeface that was in the Rudhardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sche GieĂ&#x;erei specimen, which, in ways I will explain later, differed from the version found in my source.
17
Char acter co m paris o ns original
autotrace
18 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Work Process and Specimen
expiramentation
final revival
Size an d D etail co m par i s o n s 6pt “nonpareille” size
20pt “Text” size
planegg
specimen
Note that in the “text” size, the serif details get more minute, even fussy. In the “Nonparelle” size, the letters, although obscured by ink squeeze, are more simple. Secondly, the letters in the book that I found, Planegg, had two things different from the Rudhard’sche Gießerei specimen: the “m” is asymetrical, and the dot on the “i” is commashaped. In my typeface, I balanced the “m”, as in tests it stuck out, but kept the “i” the way it was.
19
fig.11aâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;original book page
20 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Work Process and Specimen
Mitternacht
Mitternacht. Die blauen Wiesen träumen Unter Wolken mit beglänzten Säumen, Und die großen Wälder stehn wie Heere, Allem Lärm und Leid der Welt zur Wehre . . . . Fern vom Dorfe wird der Schloßuhr Schlagen Zu mir durch die klare Luft getragen, Wo bei Tag die weißen Firne glänzen, Dehnt die Nacht sich dunkel, ohne Grenzen . . . . Meines Tages Arbeit ist beendet, Meine Seele steht zum Schlaf gewendet, Doch bevor ich auf die dunkle Reise Sie entlasse, tret’ ich leise, leise, Ohne Schuhe — heilig ist der Ort, Und der liebe Gott ist nahe dort — 18
fig. 11b—Digital revival
21
Text set ting ex am pl e 6pt / 8pt leading Planegg ist eine Gemeinde im oberbayerischen Landkreis München. Sie liegt südwestlich der Stadtgrenze von München im Tal der Würm. ¶ Geographie: Planegg ist eine Gemeinde im Würmtal an der Grenze der Landkreise München und Starnberg in der Münchner Schotterebene. Sie besteht aus den Ortsteilen Planegg, Martinsried und Steinkirchen. ¶ Wappen: Das Wappen wurde 1951 als Wappen des Ortes Planegg anerkannt. Es zeigt eine rote, goldbewehrte Eule, die aus dem Familienwappen der Familie Hörwarth stammt, die von 1616 bis 1732 über den Ort herrschte. Die blaue Schlangenlinie symbolisiert die Würm, die durch Planegg fließt. ¶ Geschichte: Während Martinsried bereits im 12. Jahrhundert und Steinkirchen im 13. Jahrhundert in den Urkunden der Klöster Dietramszell bzw. Benedikt-
8pt / 10pt leading Planegg ist eine Gemeinde im oberbayerischen Landkreis München. Sie liegt südwestlich der Stadtgrenze von München im Tal der Würm. ¶ Geographie: Planegg ist eine Gemeinde im Würmtal an der Grenze der Landkreise München und Starnberg in der Münchner Schotterebene. Sie besteht aus den Ortsteilen Planegg, Martinsried und Steinkirchen. ¶ Wappen: Das Wappen wurde 1951 als Wappen des Ortes Planegg anerkannt. Es zeigt eine rote, goldbewehrte Eule, die aus dem Familienwappen der Familie Hörwarth stammt, die von 1616 bis 1732 über den Ort herrschte. Die blaue Schlangenlinie symbolisiert die Würm, die durch Planegg fließt. ¶ Geschichte: Während Martinsried bereits im 12.
10pt / 14pt leading
Planegg ist eine Gemeinde im oberbayerischen Landkreis München. Sie liegt südwestlich der Stadtgrenze von München im Tal der Würm. ¶ Geographie: Planegg ist eine Gemeinde im Würmtal an der Grenze der Landkreise München und Starnberg in der Münchner Schotterebene. Sie besteht aus den Ortsteilen Planegg, Martinsried und Steinkirchen. ¶ Wappen: Das Wappen wurde 1951 als Wappen des Ortes Planegg anerkannt. Es zeigt eine rote, goldbewehrte Eule, die aus dem Familienwappen der Familie Hörwarth stammt, die von 1616 bis 1732 über den Ort herrschte. Die blaue Schlangenlinie symbolisiert die Würm, die durch Planegg fließt. ¶ Geschichte: Während Martinsried bereits im 12. Jahrhundert und Steinkirchen im 13. Jahrhundert in den Urkunden der Klöster Dietramszell bzw. Benediktbeuern erwähnt werden, ist Planegg wohl der jüngste Ortsname des gesamten Würmtals. Er wurde erstmals 1409 in einer Verkaufsurkunde an den bayerischen Herzog Wilhelm III. erwähnt ¶ Am 1. Oktober 1425 schenkt Herzog Wilhelm diesen neu erworbenen Besitz und die dazugehörenden Gemeinden Großhadern, Martinsried, Forstenried, Fürstenried, Neuried und Gräfelfing seinem unehelichen Sohn, Konrad von Egenhofen, Planegg wird Hofmark. Der Ort war nun als Sitz der Hofmarksverwaltung Mittelpunkt und Gerichtssitz für das mittlere Würmtal. 1442 kam noch Lochham, 1720 Fronloh und 1724 Krailling dazu.
22 — Work Process and Specimen
pl an egg Character S et basic set
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzß numerals and interpunction
0123456789:;.,¡!¿?(/)[\]«» ‘ ’ ‚ “ ” „ - – — £ $€ ¶ accented characters
ÀÁÂÃÄÅĀĂÆǼÇĊČÐĎÈÉÊËĒĔĖĚĞĠ ĢĦÌÍÎÏĪĬĶĹĻĽĿŁÑŃŅŇÒÓÔÕÖØŌŎŐ ŒŔŖŘŚŞŠŢŤÙÚÛÜŪŬŮŴẂẀẄÝỲŶŸ ŹŻŽàáâãäåāăæǽçċčðďèéêëēĕėěğ ġģħìíîïīĭķĺļľŀłñńņňòóôõöøōŏőœ ŕŗřśşšţťùúûüūŭůŵẃẁẅýỳŷÿźżž ligatures and stylistic alternates
ſ ch ck fi fl ffi ffl ff tt H � -
23
Op ent ype f eatu res Standard & Descretionary Ligatures
chick fitted » chick fitted Stylistic set 02 + 03—long s + double hyphen
sea-wrist » sea-wrist capital spacing
BEHRENS » BEHRENS Stylistic set 01 + Descretionary Ligatures + Cap spacing
HITCHED » HITCHED
24 — Work Process and Specimen
Conclusion
The typeface I created, I believe, gives the best representation of both the forms and the ideas that Peter Behrens intended to be applied to his first typeface. This typeface distills the typefaces he designed in 1902 with Rudhard’sche Gießerei and makes it possible for one to set text for contemporary audiences. I learned a lot in the process of creating this typeface, including OpenType programming, which I had no knowledge of previously. That knowledge came especially in handy for designing a typeface like Behrens-Schrift which had a lot of antique elements in its original form that I wanted to include but not set as the default. Additionally, though I did not end up implementing it in Planegg’s final form, I also learned a lot about using Python and RoboFab to make changes—some of them quite drastic—to an entire typeface at once. One style change that I made in particular was to opt for a more Roman-inspired “H” as opposed to
the Fraktur-inspired “H” that was previously the default for the face. I found precedence for this “H” in a few all-caps settings, as the Fraktur “H” tended to stick out the most in an all-caps situation. Also, the long-s remains an option, but is no longer the default. I looked into programming Planegg so it would automatically place the long-s where it was required, but quickly discovered that many languages have different rules for implementing the long-s so it would be technically impossible without looking each instance up in a dictionary. It was too complicated, but remains there for users who want to give a flavor of a bygone era. While I know that Planegg would probably never be used to set a book in the 21st Century, like it was used at the beginning of the 20th Century, I hope that this revival will cause designers to take another look at the fascinating and unique Schriftkünstler era it comes from.
25
Colophon Text set primarily in 10pt Whitney Medium. Captions in 8pt Whitney Light. Headlines in 12pt Planegg Regular. Booklet produced in InDesign CS3 on a Mac. Special thanks to: Paul van der Laan for his direction on this typeface, Helga Horschig at the Klingspor Library for making my visit to the library extremely fruitful, Katherine Hale for helping me stitch the book all the way from Kansas City, and to all of my classmates for their encouraging comments every step of the way. Printed in The Hague in February, 2011 as part of the type]media MA program. The typeface Planegg and this book Copyright Š 2011 Colin M. Ford