Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

How to follow up on a double feature? Well, with a triple feature, of course! This week’s episode is about three invoices by Karl Arnold, a specialized dealer and service provider for electrics in Halberstadt. The first one is undated, but the use of Deutsche Zierschrift suggests a date after 1921, and the unusual abbreviation for the currency (“Sa.Gmk.” for Summa Goldmark?) might indicate a date before the end of the hyperinflation in 1924. The second one was issued in September 1925, and the third one in November 1926. In any case, the invoices were all used within a few years, but are highly diverse in design. The series is another evidence that maintaining a consistent visual identity was not really a thing yet. Apart from the name, the only element that is repeated and hence has branding qualities is the circled ‘KA’ monogram with lightning bolts, and even that was dropped in the third version.

A new letterhead became necessary in 1926 because the phone number system had been extended from three to four digits. Also, the company now had a branch in Oschersleben which needed to be acknowledged. The reasons for the previous change are not so clear. Was blackletter no longer considered in vogue? Or were the printed invoices simply used up and Karl Arnold now longed for something fresh? The first and the second invoice were both printed by C. Doelle & Sohn and exclusively use typefaces by the Gebr. Klingspor foundry. The third one was printed by Max Arnold. It is inferior in design quality, and exhibits some characteristics that actually make it appear older – a more eclectic mix of typefaces including some that date from the 19th century, less clear alignments, and a goofy engraving of an electric motor. One year after the publication of Tschichold’s Elementare Typographie, this was definitely a step back.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

The first invoice is a feast for fans of Rudolf Koch’s work. In addition to the magnificient Deutsche Zierschrift (1921), there is Maximilian (1917), complete with a swash initial (in “Rechnung”) and the accompanying set of open roman caps also known as Maximilian-Antiqua (for “Spezialhaus für Elektrotechnik”). The fine print is in Walter Tiemann’s Tiemann-Fraktur (1914). The invoice is for equipping the pipe organ at the local St. Katharinen church with bellows powered by an electric motor. (John Cage’s organ piece As Slow As Possible is currently being performed in another church in Halberstadt.)

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

Detail: The last line in the block between the green borders does not reach the full width. This has been balanced by filling the gap with a floral ornament from Maximilian’s glyph set.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

The invoice from 1925 arguably is the most modern one. Its typography is limited to a single typeface, Behrens-Antiqua (1907) by Peter Behrens. Color is used more selectively. The frame and the list of services and products were dropped in favor of ample whitespace.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

Detail: Metal type set on a curve! That’s quite a challenge. Further below: using two forms of ‘s’ can be helpful – the bank’s name doesn’t have a long ‘s’ (ſ). It hence is not Moo·shake, but Moos·hake, .

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

The bold wide caps with triangular serifs are from Latin Wide (1883). The Victorian caps used for “Spezialhaus für Elektrotechnik” might be from Graziosa (around 1900?) as cast by J. John Söhne. The small sans serif bits are probably in Reform-Grotesk (1904). The footer (and only the footer) is set with long ‘s’ (“Berückſichtigung”, “dieſelben”). The secret star in this wild mix is Michel-Antiqua (1919), a horizontally hatched roman by Karl Michel. Unfortunately, it has been used for too much text, in too small sizes. In addition, the printing is so poor that this little gem can’t really shine.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

Detail: Karl Michel’s Schraffierte Antiqua was cast in sizes as small as 8pt. That doesn’t mean it is a good idea to use decorated typefaces in such small sizes.

Non-typographic side note: Two of the invoices are addressed to the St. Katharinen church, one to a Pfarrer Iseke. I was curious to know whether Iseke belonged to the same parish, and stumbled upon another terrible episode from the Nazi period. Franz Iseke (*1872) indeed was priest at St. Katharinen from 1917 on. During National Socialism, he didn’t knuckle down, continued to preach Christian values and tried to prevent teenagers from being indoctrinated by the Nazi ideology. The regime took revenge and harassed him repeatedly with house searches and interrogations. In August 1937, Iseke was arrested by the Gestapo and expelled from Halberstadt, which shook him to the core, leading to his premature death in January 1938. [Orlob, Dt. Martyrologium] When it’s about Germany in the second quarter of the 20th century, the horror of discrimination, persecution and war is rarely more than a web search away, even when the subject is type on letterheads. It’s a chilling reminder what totalitarianism means.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-SA.

This invoice from a printing office in Essen, Germany uses the rarely seen Mammut, also known as Werbeschrift (“advertising typeface”) or Schrägschrift (“inclined typeface”) Mammut. The round and heavy connected script was probably released in 1928. It appears in the 1929 addendum to Handbuch der Schriftarten and is listed as an in-house design by Ludwig Wagner A.‑G., Leipzig. Type historian Hans Reichardt credits it to punchcutter Arthur Schulze.

Detail of an undated specimen (c. 1952) included in “Bleisatzschriften des 20. Jahrhunderts aus Deutschland” by Hans Reichardt (ed.). License: All Rights Reserved.

Mammut was advertised as the “indestructible inclined typeface without any overhangs”. Being “kalanderfest” was an important feature for impressing cardboard mats, or flongs, in the stereotyping process, see this post about Prägefest.

Some letterforms exhibit a ductus related to Kurrent: ‘F’, ‘H’, ‘N’ (but not ‘M’), ‘Y’. The stem of ‘T’ curls forward. Mammut has a ‘u’ with a very pronounced hook — not an umlaut, but a then common means to distinguish ‘u’ from ‘n’ in handwriting and also in less formal script typefaces. There is an alternate without hook, as well as alternative designs for ‘r’, ‘H’, ‘Y’. The glyph set further contains a final swash that can be placed at the end of a line. In some sizes, entry swashes apparently are longer than in others, cf. ‘W’ in the use and in the typeface sample.

Detail of an undated specimen, Klingspor-Museum. License: All Rights Reserved.

In 1932, a schmalfett (bold condensed) was added. Stylistically, it is quite different from the initial cut — both in the design of individual glyphs as well as in its overall character. With its angular and narrow forms, Schmalfette Mammut rather resembles Berthold’s Signal (1931) and, in particular, the heavier Block-Signal (1932). It seems possible that the condensed Mammut was created as an – admittedly speedy – follower of Block-Signal, as it was often the case with popular styles; and that the established name “Mammut” was reused to whitewash the epigone a little.

The original wide Mammut appears in Dan X. Solo’s compilation of Bold Script Alphabets (1989) as “Strudel”, with the eszett (‘ß’) presented as ‘B’. It is not clear whether it has been made into film type — probably it’s simply a showing of the metal typeface.

The invoice is for 500 flyers printed for a Catholic parish in Halberstadt. It strikes me as odd that they were ordered from a print shop in Essen — the cities are about 400 km (250 miles) apart.

Typographische Mitteilungen: Zeitschrift des Bildungsverbandes der Deutschen Buchdrucker (Typographic Messages: The Journal of the Education Association of German Printers). This October 1920 cover is set in Lo-Schrift — the narrow original style and the heavy Fette Lo-Schrift —, designed by Louis Oppenheim and first released by Berthold in 1914. In 1980, under the artistic direction of G. G. Lange, Erik Spiekermann revived and expanded the typeface family for filmsetting as Lo-Type.

The small credit line is in Magere Block, issued in 1913. In Seemann’s Handbuch der Schriftarten, this light extended member of Berthold’s Block/Berliner Grotesk series is also attributed to Oppenheim.

Ein Totentanz (A Danse Macabre) is a series of reproduced silhouettes cut by Walter Draesner and published in 1922 by B. Behrs Verlag / Friedrich Feddersen, Berlin and Leipzig, with an introduction by Max von Boehn. Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf has made an electronic edition available under a CC0-License (Public Domain Dedication).

The Gotisch typeface on the title page is Rudolf Koch’s Maximilian (1917), with a decorated capital ‘T’ and a swash alternate ‘z’. The drop cap in the introduction is also from Maximilian’s Zierbuchstaben. The artist’s name, the introduction text and the table of contents are set in Ehmcke-Fraktur (1912). The publisher’s name is rendered in caps from Ehmcke-Rustika (1914).

Marvel at all of Draesner’s spine-chilling silhouettes in the electronic edition. See also the recent French reissue Noirs Desseins, designed by Clément Le Tulle-Neyret using Yoann Minet’s Totentanz.

Plate No. 2, Der Tod und die Kinder (Death and Children)

Steel furniture ad in Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, Nr. 11/12, 1929 (Swiss special edition). This ad was at the edge of typographic design: Memphis was released that same year, and Elegant Grotesk was released just one year earlier in 1928. Perhaps this was as much an ad for Stempel as it was for this furniture manufacturer.

in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, April 1920.

… in 1920, [Piet Zwart] got an assignment from the flooring company Vickers House. He made several advertisements for this client. “Zagen, boren, vijlen” [to saw, drill and file] probably is the most iconic of this series. He assembled letters, blanks, and symbols from print houses and played around with them, solving this ‘practical print problem’. This work seems to have been influenced by El Lissitzky’s “About 2 Squares” which had been published by Van Doesburg in 1922. In this pun one single N serves as the final letter of the first three words. — iconofgraphics.com

Before he became a famous modernist industrial designer, W.D. Teague was an illustrator/designer working in advertising.