This is the certificate I wrote, designed, letterpress-printed, and presented to Gerrit Noordzij with his TDC Medal from the Type Directors Club during the 2013 ATypI conference in Amsterdam. It’s typeset in Noordzij’s own typeface, Ruse, and was printed at The Arm in Brooklyn, NY.

Noordzij passed away on March 17, 2022, and he will be missed. It’d be hard to overstate his influence on how people teach, design, and produce type today. For more context, see the official announcement of the award from the TDC (archived), as well as the video of Noordzij’s acceptance speech.

Transcription of the certificate:

In recognition of his immeasurable contributions to the fields of typeface design and education, the Medal of the Type Directors Club is presented to Gerrit Noordzij.

For more than half a century, you have served as a guiding inspiration in the fields of typography and typeface design. Through your teaching, you have fostered generations of creative thinkers and makers. With you as a role model, your students have gone on to become exceptional role models themselves. Your writing has provoked countless designers around the world to consider the shapes of letters in new and stimulating ways. Your influence is beyond measure and the history and practice of making and using letterforms is forever marked by your contributions. The Type Directors Club is proud to present you with the highest honor it can bestow upon an individual, The TDC Medal.

[TDC monogram]
[Signed]
Graham Clifford, President
10 October 2013 • Amsterdam

This pamphlet was produced by the Max Metz hardware factory from Mannheim, Germany in 1914. The cover and a good deal of the interior are set in two weights of Ingeborg-Antiqua. This static roman with vertical contrast axis and rectangular serifs was designed by Friedrich W. Kleukens and first cast by the D. Stempel foundry in nearby Frankfurt/Main around 1911. Ingeborg-Antiqua included lower-waisted alternates for B, P, and R – the latter can be seen in use twice in the line “Fabrik für Eisenwaren”.

Some of the pages also feature a serif in the Romana/De Vinne genre. It appears to be Romanisch as issued from 1902 by the AG für Schriftgießerei und Maschinenbau from Offenbach, likewise in the vicinity of Mannheim. This face shouldn’t be confused with the earlier and more popular Romanisch by Schelter & Giesecke in Leipzig. Lastly, there’s a wide sans used for the header. This could be one of the many versions of Edel-Grotesk – although the S with horizontal terminals seems off.

Matheus Müller is a German brand of sparkling wines established in 1838 and named after its founder (1773–1847). These full-page ads from 1906 bring together a number of period typefaces.

“Cuvées”, “Matheus Müller” and “Schon seit einem Menschenalter” feature Klingspor’s Steinschrift. Released in the first years of the 20th century, it’s distinguished from other typefaces with this generic name (which is an old German term for sans serifs) by Jugendstil-inspired shapes including curved strokes in B or v. The wines’ qualities emphasized by single and double underlines are shown in Washington-Grotesk. First cast by Woellmer around 1895, it’s derived from their Breite halbfette Grotesk, with fancy swash glyphs added. (A few years earlier, Schelter & Giesecke had done something similar to their Breite halbfette and Breite magere Grotesk, and even used a similar name, see Columbus & Washington.) Washington-Grotesk can be seen with alternate glyphs for a e g t.

The relatively wide grot with double-storey g used for “Hofl[ieferant] S[eine]r Maj[estät des Kaisers und Königs” is similar to Breite halbfette Grotesk or Akzidenz-Grotesk (Bauer). In further roles: Römische Antiqua and the related De Vinne (or one of its German copies). The list of highnesses for which Matheus Müller was purveyor to the court is set in a widespread design known as Moderne Steinschrift, among other names.

This ad for an automatic sheet feeder, manufactured by T.W. & G.B. Sheridan, appears in the October 1896 issue of The Inland Printer. Maybe I’m reading too much into their type choice, but Inland, with its wavy counters, is just so on the nose for a machine that loads paper into a printer. The typeface was fresh on the market, having been patented just the year before. The drop caps are set in Florentine beside text in Jenson Old Style or something very similar.

Visual Coffee is an online e-commerce project selling brand kits (sets of domain + logo).

The logo is based on Quickbrush (Trial by Cupcakes), while the texts are rendered in Poynter Oldstyle Display (Font Bureau) for headlines and Kandal (Mark Simonson Studio) for titles and body copy.

The hero section illustrations include texts rendered in Portuguesa (both Sans and Script), Quickbrush, and Charcuterie Deco.

Grafika 1 (1970), ft. Bauhaus Prisma K from Ed Benguiat’s Bauhaus Prisma & Prisma Bauhaus. This series of multiline faces was introduced in the same year and showcased in PLINC’s Art Deco-themed Alphabet Directions No. 11.

Covers for various clip books of line art issued by Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio, Pleasantville, New Jersey. See the previous post about the clip books issued in 1955 for more information on Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio.

These booklets belong to a subseries titled Grafika. It was introduced in 1970. Until 1972, 18 numbered issues were produced. From No. 19 on, the number was no longer shown prominently, and Grafika were merged into the regular series of clip books. Collector Bart Solenthaler comments:

Volk published several titles in addition to the regular clip books – including Grafika – that started out with a distinct mission, but they all eventually became interchangeable in content to their other offerings.

Although not yet used for the first issues, ITC Fat Face soon emerged as the identity typeface for the Grafika series, and was maintained for later additions, see e.g. No. 113 from 1980. Like ITC Avant Garde Gothic and ITC Ronda, ITC Fat Face is the work of Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase. These three typefaces were all released in 1970.

Grafika 2 (1971) ft. ITC Avant Garde Gothic, with the numeral 2 from Craw Modern or similar tucked into the counter of the monocular a.

Grafika 3 (1971) appears to use a solid, filled-in modification of Bauhaus Prisma. When compared to Bauhaus Alpha or Bauhaus Geometric (PLINC’s precursors of ITC Bauhaus), the differences are most notable in the counters of R (not round) and A (much larger), as well as the K with more even arms. G was trimmed for tighter spacing.

Grafika 5 sees a return of Bauhaus Prisma K, here with an “Arabic” numeral. This thick-thin-thin-thick-thin face is also used for No. 7.

Grafika 8 (1971) proudly features ITC Fat Face, with ligatures for ra and fi. While the latter was included in the font, the former appears to be a clever custom invention. This eventually became the de facto logo of Grafika.

Grafika 9 (1971) uses a phototype version of Clearface. According to the One Line catalog (1971), Photo-Lettering, Inc. offered the design in 4 weights and 2 widths, plus italics. In 1978, ITC released a version in 4 weights, credited to Victor Caruso. ITC Clearface is narrower than the variant used here. The text in light lowercase letters inside the counter is set in ITC Avant Garde Gothic.

Grafika 11 (1971).

Grafika 12 (1971).

Grafika 14 (1972). “A Gallery of Contemporary Art” is in tightly spaced ITC Ronda.

Grafika 15 (1972).

Grafika 16 (1972).

Grafika 17 (1972).

Grafika 18 (1972).

“America” (No. G20, 1972) ft. tightly spaced caps from Futura Light, with a custom CA ligature. The small text here is set in all-caps Helvetica.

“Design Devices” (No. G22, 1972) ft. Advertisers Gothic.

“Ad Animals” (No. G25, 1972) ft. Mania.

The Lancaster City Directory for 1903 listed John B. Martin (1875-1906) as a bicycle repairer and gave his address as 421 N. Prince Street, so it seems likely that this business card with the same information dates to about the same time.

I haven't uncovered any information regarding Martin's career as a trick rider, nor have I found any reference to the athletic grounds and banked bicycle track that he operated on Prince Street.

Martin died on March 19, 1906. He was only 30 years old and left behind three young daughters.

David Bachman Landis of Pluck Art Printery printed Martin's business card.

J. B. Martin, Wheels to Hire.
Martin the Trick Rider.
First-Class Bicycle Repairing. Athletic Grounds in the Rear.
Come and see the new banked Bicycle Track.
421 N. Prince St., Lancaster, Pa.
Half Square North of P.R.R. Freight Depot.

“Wedding” (No. 292) ft. the festive Saphir caps set on a curve.

Covers for various clip books of line art issued by Volk Corp in 1977. This year marked their silver anniversary. The celebration started already in 1976, indicating that the company was established in late 1951. According to Bart Solenthaler, it went out of business sometime in the 1980s.

See the previous post about the clip books issued in 1955 for more information on Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio.

“Holidays” (No. 293) ft. Paprika, a biline variant of Tabasco.

“Entertainment” (No. 295) ft. Tonight.

“Office” (No. 296) ft. Bobo Bold.

“Hobbies” (No. 297) ft. Abbey Scroll.

“Women” (No. 300) ft. Yagi Double.

“Holidays” (No. 301) ft. Koloss with EndcapS.

“Men” (No. 302) ft. Atrax.

“Spring” (No. 303) ft. Jolly Roger.

“The Farm” (No. 678) ft. Arnold Böcklin in all caps.

“Summer” (No. 679) ft. the Sparkly style from the Churchward Design series.

“Children” (No. 680) ft. Eurostile Bold Condensed.

“Medicine” (No. 682) ft. Columna.

“Sales” (No. 683) ft. Whimzitype 3600.

“Groups” (No. 685) ft. Eurostile Bold Extended.

“Christmas” (No. 688) ft. Benguiat Caslon caps with swash alternates.

“Menu” (No. 690) ft. more Saphir.

“Energy” (No. 691) ft. Frankfurter.

“Homemaker” (No. 692) ft. more Benguiat Caslon, here in caps set on a curve.

“Industry” (No. 693) ft. Old Gothic Bold Italic.

“Teens” (No. 695) ft. ITC Uptight Neon.

“Science” (No. 697) ft. Data 70.

“Spring & Summer Sports” (No. 699) ft. Marvin (Face). Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Design Devices” (No. G75) ft. Charrette. The decorated A is taken from Cloister Initials. The logo of the Grafika subseries is in ITC Fat Face with ligatures for ra and fi, accompanied by Kabel Light with omitted tittles.

“Pointers” (No. G77) ft. manicules (☛☞) with caps from Windsor Elongated.

“Symbols” (No. G80) ft. caps from Futura Light with a custom SY ligature. The anniversary note in the counter of O is in Helvetica Condensed.

“John Doe” (No. G82) ft. Augustea Open.

“Jane Doe” (No. G83) ft. Keyhole, which was Formatt’s copy of Sintex with added alternates.

Homepage. The black-patterned bubble morphs as mouse hovers.

From the website:

In 2018 the Austrian capital is celebrating Viennese Modernism. Four of the era’s chief protagonists died 100 years earlier: the painters Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, the architect Otto Wagner and the universal artist Koloman Moser. Each played a leading role in making the fin de siècle period such an important time for art in Vienna and Austria. Klimt and Moser were cofounders of the Vienna Secession – which has remained one of the most important spaces for visual art ever since it first opened. To celebrate the incredible achievements of these exceptional artists, Vienna is not only devoting a year-long series of exhibitions and events to them 100 years down the line, but has also set up this page as a digital Secession. A place where you can immerse yourself in the era in which they lived and interact with the artists themselves. You will soon see that all four of them had one thing in common: they were ahead of their time. Their work set new standards and continues to inspire people all over the world to this day.

Most of the website is set in Graphik while Louize Display is invoked sparsely for visual punch. The overall direction of space-dividing thin lines and intentionally blurred hierarchies does sometimes get confusing, though.

The alabaster bust automatically rotates but will also subject to mouse dragging.

In August 1923, the Bayerische Bauindustrie A.-G., an incorporated construction company in Munich, issued a series of coupons worth 100,000, 1,000,000 and 5,000,000 marks — the devastating hyperinflation was in full swing. Although these pieces of Notgeld (“emergency money”) weren’t official banknotes, they had the backing of the Bavarian State Bank and the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior.

The amounts are spelled out in Lichte fette Grotesk a.k.a. Phosphor. Dated August 24th, 1923, the coupons are an early in-use example of Jakob Erbar’s inline caps. Several sources give 1924 as the year of first release for this typeface. The name wasn’t registered with the German association of typefoundries before January 31th, 1924, and a proof was sent in only on April 29th. The date of issue printed on the banknotes does not necessarily have to match the actual date of printing, of course – documents can be backdated for all kinds of reasons. However, considering the speed of the inflation in the course of 1923, it seems highly unlikely that these coupons were printed much later – they would have been worthless by November, when one US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German marks. It is safe to say that Lichte fette Grotesk was available and in use already in 1923.

Having said that, with a production process that can take several years — from initial design to test cuttings and advance shipments to publicity – it is rarely possible to pinpoint a single date, and often one can’t even argue that one date is more correct than the other.

Note that both forms for K, R and S were used, in an apparently random manner. The other fonts in use are the bold cut (1910) of Feder-Grotesk, Erbar’s first released typeface family and a remarkably early example of a contrasted sans serif; and Wilhelm Jaecker’s Jaecker-Schrift (1912). Printed by the G. Franz’sche Buchdruckerei, München.

In the last episode of Weekly Invoice, we’ve seen an example of Grotesk-Pfeiler in use. This week brings us another pretty straightforward invoice design, printed in one color, and used in 1938 by Hahn & Hummel, a mechanical weaving mill in Bautzen, Saxony. Again the letterhead is distinguished by a peculiar all-caps display typeface. Its name is Elementar.

The geometric semi-slab serif that could pass off as the grandmother of Neville Brody’s Insignia (1990) was issued by the Norddeutsche Schriftgießerei in 1927 — just like Grotesk-Pfeiler. Elementar was also made by the same designer, F. Schultze. Unfortunately, we don’t know a lot about this person. Chances are that the ‘F’ stands for Franz or Fritz, but who knows — maybe it’s a Frida? The Berlin telephone directory for 1927 has more than one hundred entries for F. Schultze, including painters, architects, printers and other professions that make for a possible candidate, and this is already assuming that the artist lived in the same city where the foundry was located. Elementar and Grotesk-Pfeiler are the only two typefaces credited to him or her. Neither has been revived so far.

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 (§).

This PLINC ad in U&lc, Vol. 5, No. 1, March 1978 is among the first appearances of ITC Benguiat designed a few months before. It shows ligatures (AB, AE, AH, AK, AR, LA, SS) or “logo letters” not found in the digital version. The ornamental border emphasizes the Art Nouveau roots of Ed Benguiat’s typeface. He may have been the designer of this ad.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Architect & The Industrial Arts, 11th Exhibition of Contemporary American Design, February 12 to March 24 [1929]

This poster was designed in 1928 [Met]. Futura had first come onto the market merely a year before, in late 1927. Unsurprisingly, Dwiggins uses capitals only. He found the new European sans serifs like Futura, Kabel or Gill Sans “fine in the capitals and bum in the lower-case”. [Paul Shaw] One year later, in February 1929, Mergenthaler Linotype commissioned Dwiggins to design a better sans serif, as a competitor to Futura & Co. This was to become Metro, his first typeface design.

The image is taken from the recommendable @WADwiggins Twitter stream about “America’s Master Graphic Designer, Artist, and Wit”, edited by Bruce Kennett as a teaser for an upcoming illustrated biography by Letterform Archive.

Typical “artistic printing” of the late 19th century.

The sans serif is surprisingly similar to Akzidenz-Grotesk and its forebears, which didn’t arrive until at least 15 years later, and close to News Gothic which was born in 1908. Perhaps it is a face shown as Gothic No. 4 in an 1867 specimen from Farmer, Little & Co (detail), which could be imported from the UK and known there under a different name. (Due to the lack of trademarked names during this period, there are many loosely faces called “Gothic No. 4”.) The monolinear contrast, nearly circular ‘o’, and angled terminals of the ‘S’ (seen only in one size of the Farmer specimen) were uncommon among sans serifs of the time — with the notable exception of the very first sans serif typeface: Caslon’s Egyptian of 1816. The odd, open-bowled ‘g’ is also found in Marr Sans, derived from Scottish type of the 1870s.

The near-geometric “1883” may be lettered by hand, but none of the other type is, and it fits the ranging numerals of Gothic No. 4 and its cousins.

Cover detail.

I posted this to my blog years ago, but thought this would be a good place for it.

In 1977 at age 21, I was production manager (officially) and assistant art director (unofficially) for Metropolis, a weekly newspaper in Minneapolis. I was the resident “type expert” on staff, and the editor encouraged me to write a piece for “Final Draft,” a recurring miscellany page in the newspaper. I chose to survey the landscape of type clichés of the day.