akzidenz accidenz grotesk
akzidenz grotesk Pedro da Gama 2009
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intro history identifying characteristics similarities to other typefaces its purpose bibliografia
intro
intro
Akzidenz-Grotesk is a realist sans-serif typeface originally released by the H. Berthold AG type foundry in 1896 under the title Accidenz-Grotesk. It was the first sans serif typeface to be widely used and influenced many later neo-grotesque typefaces. Max Miedinger’s Helvetica, Adrian Frutiger’s Univers and Bauer and Baum’s Folio are examples of it. Akzidenz Grotesk is well-known for the logic of its systematic family, and it is tempting to equate this modernist idea with the sans genre - however, almost no-one used sans-serif faces for text in 1900.
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history
Royal Grotesk specimen book from Haag Drugulin, Leipzig edition 1963.
Berthold’s AkzidenzGrotesk probe no. 429 - probably 1954.
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history
Akzidenz Grotesk was released by Berthold in Berlin in 1898, according to their own literature. It was obviously based on faces already offered by other foundries, some of which were later taken over by Berthold. One of the contemporaries of AG was Royal Grotesk. In 1880, the german typographer and hieroglyphic expert Ferdinand Theinhardt develops a sans-serif typeface under the name of Royal Grotesk for the Prussian Academy of Sciences publishers. Eighteen years later Hermann Berthold takes over Theinhard’s foundry, making the Royal Grotesk typeface part of Akzidenz Grotesk family. In Berthold’s specimen booklet no. 429, which was most likely released in 1954, Akzidenz Grotesk Mager (light) was still referred to as Royal Grotesk, in brackets. They kept adding weights, some of them from other faces, acquired from other foundries. Some say the early Akzidenz Grotesk Halbfett (medium) was also from Theinhard, but there are no certainties about this, as it was not documented. 13
Berthold’s AkzidenzGrotesk probe no. 473
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history
Every foundry had a version of that type of face, more often than not available in a few sizes only. The original series remained quite divers, individual weights showing not much resemblance but in name. It was mainly a marketing and naming success. The versions of Akzidenz Grotesk that we use on computers nowadays descend from the recuts made in the late 50s under the direction of G端nter Gerhard Lange, who was their (freelance) artistic director at the time. The idea was to get a uniformity between the different weights of this family, since they all come from different sources. GG Lange always claimed that Berthold had taken some Akzidenz Grotesk weights and sizes from Popplbaum in Vienna, and that is supposed to account for the release date of 1896 or 1898. Popplbaum was not bought by Berthold until 1926. Berthold did take different fonts from all the foundries they bought (and obviously also made deal without buying a foundry) 15
Light 9pt Light Italic 9pt
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
Extended 9pt Ext. Italic 9pt
The quick brown fox jumped over The quick brown fox jumped over
Regular 9pt Italic 9pt Condensed 9pt Cond. Italic 9pt Medium 9pt Medium Italic 9pt
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
Bold 9pt Bold Italic 9pt
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy The quick brown fox jumped over the
Extra 9pt Extra Italic 9pt
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
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history
and rename them until they got a family together which still showed the original influences, sometimes even from size to size. The deals between foundries (by 1924 Berthold had bought 17 foundries in Prague, Riga, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Moscow and St. Petersburg) have never been fully researched, and neither has the complete history of Akzidenz Grotesk been written yet. Style variations such as AG Extra (1958), AG Extra Bold (1966), AG Super (1968), AG Super Italic and AG Extra Bold Italic (both 2001) were also designed under the supervision of GG Lange. In May 2006, Berthold released Akzidenz Grotesk in OpenType format, under the name Akzidenz Grotesk Pro, which offers extend language support for Central European, Baltic and Turkish as well as Welsh, archaic Danish and Esperanto and is available in CFF PostScript OpenType. 17
Akzidenz Grotesk Next Pro example from Berthold’s website.
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history
The foundry also released Akzidenz Grotesk Standard, which includes glyphs of Western European character set, in both PostScript and TrueType flavored OpenType. In December of the same year, Berthold announced the release of Akzidenz Grotesk Next. Designed by Bernd Moellenstaedt and Dieter Hofrichter, was conceived as a single family that uses the principal shape characteristics of the original Akzidenz Grotesk, which now appear throughout all the weights. The x-height has been readjusted as well as the weights to obtain a more consistent design throughout the family from extralight to black. Akzidenz-Grotesk Next is available in PostScript and TrueType flavors of OpenType with over 500 glyphs and extended language support for Central European, Baltic and Turkish as well as Welsh, archaic Danish and Esperanto.
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identifying characteristics
QJG j i g MR a
identifying characteristics
Let’s go through some of the most singular features of this typeface (as of 1898), which make this font what it is for us nowadays. • tail of uppercase Q does not cross the circle • uppercase J does not descend below baseline • right-angle bar and spur at the base of uppercase G • middle of uppercase M descends to baseline • single-story lowercase g (no lower ball) • square dots on lowercase i and j • double-story lowercase a • lowercase i is just a straight line • uppercase R has a straight leg
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similarities to other typefaces
e e e Akzidenz Grotesk, Helvetica and Univers 48pt.
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similarities to other typefaces
Akzidenz Grotesk is sometimes at first glance mistaken for the Helvetica or Univers typefaces. Can you easily spot Akzidenz? abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz The similarities of Helvetica, Univers and Akzidenz Grotesk are apparent, but there are some subtle differences between these typefaces. Let’s see: • lowercase a, e, c and s and uppercase C, G and S have diagonal (or open) terminals • lowercase a has different shapes in all of the typefaces • uppercase J has a smaller tail • uppercase Q tail doesn’t cut through the letter • uppercase G base has different spurs • uppercase R has a straight leg 27
Akzidenz and Helvetica
hamburgerfonts hamburgerfonts Akzidenz and Univers
hamburgerfonts hamburgerfonts
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similarities to other typefaces
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. Though Univers also has a bigger x-height than Akzidenz Grotesk, the main difference is the general weight of the typeface. though letters like a, e, b, o and s are thinner, other like m, g, f, x and y are much wider and the left and right spaces before kerning are also wider, which produces wider text. Both Helvetica and Univers are more regular and have a greater consistency of stroke weight. Some new weights, condensed and extended widths were released under the title Standard.
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its purpose
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its purpose
Very little is known about Akzidenz’s purpose. What did the typographers had in mind when they made this typeface and what was it made for. Every typeface has a purpose; it may be headlines, advertisement, books, magazines, a specific logo, etc. But in this case, there are no certainties about its genesis. What we do know is that Akzidenz’s direct percursor, Royal Grotesk (Ferdinand Theinhardt, 1880) was conceived for a scientific publication, so one may assume Berthold had the same idea in mind when it came to the making of this typeface. One thing is for sure, like all sans serifs from that time, Akzidenz Grotesk was meant to be used as a display face (the German word Akzidenzschrift means display face or jobbing type), but because it also included a good lowercase and different weights it was used more and more as a text face.
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bibliography
books
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bibliography
Manual de tipografía, John Kane, Editorial Gustavo Gili, SL, Barcelona, 2005 The Elements of Typographic Style, version 3.0, Robert Bringhurst, Hartley & Marks Publishers, Vancouver, 2004 Veintidós consejos sobre tipografía / Ventidós cosas que nunca debes hacer con las letras, Enric Jardí, Actar, Barcelona, 2007
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web pages
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bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akzidenz_Grotesk http://www.bertholdtypes.com http://www.myfonts.com http://typophile.com/node/4567 http://typophile.com/node/19482 http://typophile.com/node/17655 http://typophile.com/node/17643 http://www.xabel.com/?p=50 http://www.fonts.com http://www.rightreading.com/typehead/akzidenz_grotesque.htm and Martin Majoor’s Inclined to be dull PDF
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the end
accidenz akzidenz grotesk