The Große Düsseldorfer Kunstausstellung was a large art exhibition that took place at Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast (Ehrenhof) from 9 April to 7 May 1961.

Wolf D. Zimmermann designed the key visual and brochure cover. He opted for a lockup involving seventeen times the letter D (or d), for Düsseldorf. Many of the featured typefaces were released in the decade before the exhibition, including Salto (Klingspor, 1952), Vendôme italique (Fonderie Olive, 1953), Pro Arte (Haas, 1954), Time Script (Weber, 1956) Folio schmalfett (Bauer, 1956), and Papageno (Bauer, 1958). The only typeface to appear twice, in upper- and lowercase, is Volta (Bauer, 1955).

The exhibition title at the top is added in Helvetica. I’m not quite sure if the elongated didone D really is from Onyx. And I didn’t track down the specific Bodoni (?) version.

Via Jens Müller, who praises Zimmermann as one of his favorite designers.

Poster for the Düsseldorfer Karneval 1973 that started on this day fifty years ago.

The design by local agency Kämmerling & Feser Werbung brings together Scheherazade from the One Thousand and One Nights folk tales (in a depiction that’s sadly equally orientalist and sexist) and Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine in the form of the baroque equestrian statue on the city’s market square, created by Flemish sculptor Gabriël Grupello.

The display typeface at the top is an interesting one, with roots in nearby Belgium: it’s a phototype version of Indépendant. Flemish artist Jos Dufour (1896–1976) and Dutch graphic artist Joan Collette (1889–1958) designed it collaboratively to commemorate the centennial of Belgian independence from the Netherlands in 1930. The Art Deco design was cast by Etablissements Plantin S.A., which ironically was the Belgian branch of Typefoundry Amsterdam. In this application, the s has two circular counters, unlike in the original, and the word “Karneval” got dressed up with colored stripes. There are various digital revivals and interpretations of Indépendant, including the caps-and-small-caps Jumbo Mumbo NF. See the typeface page for more options.

The motto of the carnival’s 1973 edition, “Fairy tales from 1001 nights”, is in Arriola Caslon, a swash-laden knockoff of Benguiat Caslon. Some of the small text is provided in German, English, French, and Dutch, and set in Univers.

Printed by Alfred Holle, Düsseldorf.

A relatively rare Letraset face, on a split postcard from 1988, advertising Düsseldorf Airport: Titus was drawn by David Quay in two weights, Light and Medium, and added to Letraset’s catalog in 1984. Only the Light has been digitized.

Type trivia 1: The photo at the lower right shows a jet by American Airlines, with Massimo Vignelli’s iconic livery design using Helvetica.

Type trivia 2: After the tragic fire at Düsseldorf Airport in 1996, Brigitte Hartwig, Beate Brauner, Erik Spiekermann and others at MetaDesign devised a new wayfinding system, using FF Info Display. It had to be developed and implemented in no more than six weeks.

Ad from 1906 for the painting school of Hanny Stüber and Else Neumüller, using Behrens-Schrift in four sizes.

Hanny Stüber (1870–1955) was a member of the Rheinischer Frauenklub (“Rhenish Women’s Club”) and was also involved in the women’s suffrage movement in Germany. Together with Else Neumüller (1875–1934) and others, she founded the Verein Düsseldorfer Künstlerinnen, the Düsseldorf Association of Women Artists, in 1911. From 1899 to 1932, the two artists ran a painting school for girls and women in Düsseldorf.

From 1903 to 1907, Peter Behrens, the designer of Behrens-Schrift, served as director of the Kunstgewerbeschule in Düsseldorf.