Sign for Café Rommel, a pastry shop and confectionery in Erfurt, documented in October 2021.

Our first traveling exhibition is titled Wohin bringt ihr uns? »Euthanasie«-Verbrechen im Nationalsozialismus (“Where are you taking us? ‘Euthanasia’ Crimes under National Socialism”). It made many new demands on our design: durable, robust material, the simplest possible assembly and dismantling, reversible without a trace, but still absolutely safe, with the smallest possible pack size and total weight, flexibly adaptable to different room situations … that’s how a traveling exhibition has beauty in itself! So we're all the happier with the result. The centerpiece is the 15 exhibition boards that are easily leaned against the walls. You don’t need a hanging system or drill holes and you can use long corridors and large halls. If necessary, they can even be placed in the room as a “cluster”. But first they stay with Topf & Sons in Erfurt for a while.

For the design of the exhibition we used Gräbenbach in various weights and Mono styles to get a historic yet human touch. In combination with an attention-grabbing signal color and a diffuse, multi-layered layout – which reflects the uncertainty addressed in the title – a concise style came together.

An assortment of paper signs for the use in restaurants and pubs, produced in Germany probably around 1930 and later.

“Empfehle prima lebende Karpfen” (“Recommend first-class live carp”) and “Bestellungen auf Gänse werden jetzt schon erbeten” (“Orders for geese are requested already now”) use condensed rounded grotesks in two sizes. The smaller one with squarish letterforms and the pointed tail in a appears to match the Schmale runde Grotesk as cut at J.M. Huck & Co. around 1885. It was later cast by their successor, the AG für Schriftgießerei und Maschinenbau, see this specimen from circa 1910. The larger one might be a poster cut of an equally generic name, cf. the rounded sans serifs shown in a wood type specimen by Klinkhardt from the end of the 19th century. The carp advert is enhanced with a formidable manicule.

“Das Behängen der Fenster sowie das Belegen der Tische u. Stühle mit Kleidungsstücken ist verboten” (“It is forbidden to cover the windows or occupy the tables and chairs with articles of clothing”) uses a bold weight from Schelter-Antiqua. This family was issued by Schelter & Giesecke between 1905 and 1907. The schmal fett was available in poster sizes up to 24 cicero (288 pt), with the larger sizes cut from wood. The typeface used for “Der Besitzer” (“The owner”) is Etienne schmal (1880).

The more concise variant “Das Belegen der Stühle und Tische mit Garderobe ist nicht gestattet” (“It is not permitted to occupy the chairs and tables with clothes”) features the most modern type: This sign is set in two weights from Erbar-Grotesk (1926). It includes a credit that reads “Gaststättenformular-Zentrale Kurt Leffler, Erfurt-Stotternheim — Dr1 / PhKE”. The latter abbreviation stands for Druckerei Philipp Kühner Eisenach. Its inclusion suggests that at least this sign was produced at a later date. Such printer identification codes were introduced in the GDR in 1951.

The signs measure between 29.5×21 cm and 39×25.5 cm.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: All Rights Reserved.

Now that we’ve seen some invoices in Erbar-Grotesk and its inline precursor Phosphor, it’s time for one where the two related faces were paired, right? Wrong — this is Reflexschrift Helios, a Phosphor follower released in 1928 by the Ludwig Wagner foundry in Leipzig.

Helios is an all-caps face with geometric sans serif letterforms, too, and similar in weight to Jakob Erbar’s design. However, it takes the idea one step further, and ingeniously doubles the inline effect. The naming tops it, too: Helios is not just licht (bright) or phosphorescent, but the sun itself.

Less popular than Phosphor, Helios didn’t make it to the phototype era, and — to my knowledge — has not been digitized yet either. CastleType’s Zamenhof Inverse is probably as close as one gets.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Zamenhof Inverse is much lighter, with a less compact C. The lines in ‘A’ or ‘B’ reveal that it was not designed to be used separately, but in combination with other styles of the series, for chromatic effect.

Typewriter buffs may note that a special script form has been used for the ‘M’ in the currency: Rℳ for Reichsmark.

The main products of this factory were leather driving belts. This is directly reflected in the logo, which shows the letters ‘HBE’ (Heinrich Bernhardt, Erfurt) tied together with a driving belt.

Source: twitter.com Ferdinand Ulrich/p98a. License: All Rights Reserved.

The real Helios can be found in the collection of the p98a letterpress workshop in Berlin. This snapshot of a case with metal sorts in two sizes reveals that the fonts have more to offer than only caps: there are numerals, punctuation marks, and even section signs (§).

“Cafe at the bus station”, Schmidtstedter Straße, Erfurt-Innenstadt.