Front cover with an allegory of Historia and a title in Moderne Versalien

In 1854, three years after London’s Crystal Palace was completed, Munich proudly opened its own Glaspalast, or Glass Palace. Located in the Old Botanical Garden, it hosted dozens of major art exhibitions until its destruction in a fire in 1931 – a fate that the London model would share a few years later.

Shown here is the cover of the catalog to the annual exhibition of 1902 – and a selection of pages with adverts.

Section page for the appendix with adverts – which were handled by Rudolf Mosse. Römische Antiqua is paired with Angelus-Mediäval. The small type at the bottom is Mediäval-Egyptienne or similar.

Greif is a condensed companion to Ludwig & Mayer’s Aurora. It’s here used with various alternates, see for example the two forms for g, s, H and M. In this ad for E.A. Fleischmann’s Hof-Kunsthandlung it’s used together with Breite magere Grotesk.

The ad by Passage Schüssel features Eckmann, a typeface that was ubiquitous in German commercial printing in the first decade of the 20th century. It can here be seen with some of the accompanying Schmuck, or ornaments.

The ad for L. Bernheimer, purveyor to the Royal Bavarian court, mixes several of the aforementioned typefaces, plus Etienne schmal, Schelter & Giesecke’s Etienne, Breite magere Grotesk, a condensed sans (possibly Schelter & Giesecke’s Schmale Steinschrift which originated at Figgins), one of the many German copies of Bradley, and a couple more.

Art dealer M. Wagmüller specified Isis for the name and Römisch for everything else.

More Eckmann (here with long s (ſ)), Angelus-Mediäval, and Greif, the latter used alongside the wider Aurora – for “Photochrom”, with a CH ligature. “Maler” is in Holsatia.

Krause & Finckh promoted their Magazin für bildende Kunst with Georg Schiller’s Neudeutsch.

Back cover with more Römische Antiqua

Label from 1927

The labels used by Italian violinmaker Ernesto Pevere from around 1924 to 1930 is set in Poppelbaum’s Block. Local type foundries Fondografica and Reggiani had this design as Bologna and Nerone, respectively. This is perhaps the first label design he ever used. He made a modification to the word “Liutista” (“luthist”) on certain labels from 1928, altering it to “Liutaio” (“luthier”) by hand.

In 1930, he introduced a new label. While it’s possible that other designs exist, the one depicted here is quite small and incorporates two unidentified sans-serif typefaces. Breite halbfette Grotesk might be the less wide one.

A new label appeared in 1940, The new label used four typefaces, and stated with whom he apprenticed. The maker’s name is in Ariston, with Narciso Chiara Larga (Nebiolo’s version of Edel-Grotesk / Aurora-Grotesk VI–VII) below it. The name of the maker’s teacher, Ettore Soffritti, is in Copperplate Gothic, and the last line in Semplicità.

The latest label design I can find uses a typeface similar to Centaur for the maker’s name – possibly Inkunabula – and an unidentified bold italic typeface for the place and year in which the instrument was made.

Ernesto Pevere was born in 1891 and established as a luthier in Ferrera, where he was a pupil and assistant of Ettore Soffritti. After Soffritti’s death in 1928, Pevere continued working in a virtually indistinguishable style, sometimes using Soffritti’s name on the label. He worked with great energy, producing many instruments in a range of quality and finish, using classical models and a rich orange to red coloured varnish. At his death in 1963 he is reputed to have made 400 violins, 10 violas and 20 cellos. [Ingles & Hayday]

Label from 1928

Label from 1928

Label from 1929

Label from 1931

Label from 1941

Label from 1943

Label from 1962

The labels of Enrico Piretti use Tudor Black for the luthier’s name – in Italy, this blackletter design went under the names Gotico neretta (by FTC) and Urbino (by Fondografica). The remaining words are added in sans-serif caps. The wide L in combination with the narrow A suggest it could be Breite halbfette Grotesk, which was sold in Italy under the names Alala (by Reggiani) and Etrusco nero (by Nebiolo). It’s not clear if the formal script used for the branded mark is dervied from a typeface.

Piretti’s labels were typically signed, and the place where the instruments were made – here Bologna – was written in by hand.

Enrico Piretti (Bologna, 1911–1993) was an Italian luthier, one of the most important of the fifties and eighties of the 20th century. His classical guitars and violins have a good international reputation for their sound qualities and their aesthetic care. Piretti attended the Italian School of Violin Making of which the famous luthier Luigi Mozzani, already the creator of the famous flat-bottomed pan mandolin, was the director. In 1949 Piretti won the Cremona International Violin Making Competition, and obtained other important awards during his career. In the 1960s he devoted himself to the creation of archtop electro-acoustic guitars. Alongside the contemporary tube amplifiers, Davoli and Binson were instruments of great value.

Label from 1970

Slipcase with all 14 books

Between 1925 and 1930, the Bauhaus published a series of 14 books, authored by teachers and friends of the legendary design school. The titles discussed the ideas of the Bauhaus in art, design and architecture. In response to the Bauhaus Centennial in 2019, all 14 Bauhausbücher were re-issued in 2021 by Lars Müller Publishers in collaboration with Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung in a English translation, preserving the original typography and design.

The digital re-issue required the use of digital revivals of the original typefaces used – four of those books utilise LD Genzsch Antiqua by Michael Wörgötter / Lazydogs as their main text face: Book 10 Dutch Architecture by Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud, Book 11 The Non-Objective World by Kasimir Malevich, Book 13 Cubism by Albert Gleizes, and Book 14 From Material to Architecture by László Moholy-Nagy. The typeface’s original features such as the historical hyphen and the em dash enable a redesign true to the original publication.

Book jacket of Dutch Architecture feat. Akzidenz-Grotesk fett

Pages 26–27 from Dutch Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk. The caption uses an unidentified font, see comments.

Pages 28–29 from Dutch Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk

Book jacket of Cubism with the English title added in Helvetica Inserat or similar, see comments

Pages 84–85 from Dutch Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk

Double-page spread from Cubism feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and what looks like Helvetica Extended

Pages 84–85 from Cubism feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Helvetica. Page numbers appear to be from Akzidenz-Grotesk Super.

Book jacket of From Material to Architecture, with the English title added in what looks like Akzidenz-Grotesk Bold

Pages 92–93 from From Material to Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk (in Bold and Super weights)

Pages 96–97 from From Material to Architecture feat. LD Genzsch Antiqua and Akzidenz-Grotesk. The caption on the right is set in a digitization of Neue Moderne Grotesk, with the paragraph below in Volta.

The seventh issue of the Offset. Buch und Werbekunst magazine – published in 1926 – was dedicated to the Bauhaus. The issue included a school overview-article, written by Walter Gropius, as well as a László Moholy-Nagy article on contemporary typography, a piece by Gunta Stölzl about the Bauhaus weaving studio, another by Oskar Schlemmer about work for the school’s stage, and articles on letterform design by Josef Albers and Herbert Bayer. The Bauhaus portion’s or the magazine – which differed greatly from the magazine’s normal appearance – were designed by the Bauhaus’s Druckerei und Reklame-Abteilung [printing and advertising department]. I assume that means that the issue was designed by Moholy-Nagy and Bayer, etc. The cover (not shown) was designed by Joost Schmidt.

The Bauhäusler also designed the ads running in the issue. There was was one for the Leipzig typefoundry J. G. Schelter & Giesecke’s Koralle typeface, and another for Monotype. The Monotype ad seems to have been composed with Schelter & Giesecke type, rather than with Monotype fonts. The fonts used were Breite fette Grotesk and Breite halbfette Grotesk (at least). The ad has a design credit on it: the word “bauhaus” appears in all-lowercase type at the top-right corner of the page.

Ad for express steamers from Hamburg to the North Sea resorts from 1902. The drawing (signed by Madalena?) shows the Sylter Süd-Bahn which was put into operation the year before.

The primary typeface is Herkules. Issued by Berthold and its subsidiary Bauer & Co. in 1899, Herkules is the boldest and widest style from the foundry’s series of jobbing typefaces with club terminals, see also Carola-Grotesk, Inseratschrift Record, Regina-Kursiv and Hansa-Kursiv. “Von” and “nach den” is set in a related narrower style: It’s the schmal fett style of Gloria by Emil Gursch’s foundry.

This pairing is interspersed with Schelter & Giesecke’s Breite halbfette Grotesk. The smaller text at the bottom features styles from the De Vinne/Romana genre, in three weights. While the boldest one appears to match the fett (ca. 1901) from Gursch’s Elzevir, the light weight looks like Schelter & Giesecke’s Romanisch, with a descending R leg and an open bowl in p.

Advertising card for “Hasenmayer’s bone-forming children’s flour”. Baldur, a so-called neudeutsch typeface issued by the Julius Klinkhardt foundry in 1901, is combined with caps from Breite halbfette Grotesk and two widths of Romanisch, both by Schelter & Giesecke.

Sicheres Vorbeugungsmittel gegen englische Krankheit, entwickelt die KInder nicht schwammig dick, sondern normal, gesund und knochenstark.

(“Safe preventive against the English Disease [i.e. Rickest], the children do not develop spongily fat, but normal, healthy and with strong bones.”)

Het Frame-boekje en Het Bandenboekje (“The Frame Booklet” and “The Tyre Booklet”) are two instructional booklets for bicycle repair and construction, issued by the Centraal Bureau voor den Rijwielhandel (“Central Office for Bicycle Trade”) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Both booklets have a cover printed on “elephant skin” paper, with titles set in Egmont. The interior uses Romana, assisted by Nobel and a handful of other typefaces in the advertisement section in the back of the booklets.

The booklets are not dated, but some of the ads mention both what they have on offer currently, and what they will have in stock once the war is over. This makes it likely that the books were issued between the winter of 1944 (when half of the Netherlands were liberated from the Nazi occupation) and the end of WWII in the Netherlands on May 5, 1945.

Printed by Drukkerij De Globe, Amsterdam

Title page. Het Frame-boekje came with a paper ruler (centimeters and inches). “Linophile” is obviously a pseudonym.

Page from Het Bandenboekje. Note that the printer uses a few habits that later went out of fashion: subheadings are right-aligned within the text block; the printers used spacing for emphasis instead of italics; they used double quotes where nowadays single quotes are the custom. In addition, the opening quotes are placed on the baseline, a habit that has disappeared in the Netherlands altogether, with exception of a few newspapers and institutes that still favor this style.

Spread from Het Frameboekje, with page numbers on top of the page; right-aligned subheads, and tables placed center-aligned.

Instructional illustration, showing the use of Bahr’s Normograph for lettering. From Typotheque:

The Normograph, for example, invented by vocational school teacher Georg Bahr, was patented in Germany in 1909 and in America in 1912. Bahr’s Normograph did not contain a full character set, but only a few elementary shapes — stems, arms, curve segments, diagonals — that needed to be combined into letters and numerals.

Advertisement for Cyclia, with a few weights and sizes of Nobel. “We are happy to advise you about purchasing...” followed by a list of bicycle parts (this is also a modest suggestion for type designers looking for Dutch words for type specimens). “Handelsonderneming” uses Monoline Script.

Esteka Achterlichten (“Esteka Rear Lights”); Esteka is probably a phonetic acronym for S.T.K.

Advertisements; spread from Het Bandenboekje. In contrast to the body text, the ad on the right hand page does use Romana Italic. The “Wereld” advertisement says: “The end of the war marks a new era for the world / De Wereld”.

Advertisement for wooden wheels: “In normal times, I should not belong in this booklet. However, in these times, the bicycle repair gentlemen cannot do without me if they want to keep their trade on track”. The ad below, using Gill Sans and Beton, mentions both current service (in war time) and future stock (in time of peace).

Ad for steel bullets, using Monoline Script and Breite halbfette Grotesk; the bottom advertisement for ‘raw material’ pairs Monoline Script with Egmont.

In his book (design) stories Felix Wiedler shows some pictures of the exhibition catalog and writes (in all lowercase):

in 1945, an exhibition about modern architecture in the u.s.a. was shown in zurich. max bill (1908-1994) designed the poster and catalogue cover. squares standing on a corner are a format that bill often used in his paintings, too – influenced by mondrian. bill preferred all lowercase spelling, as seen in the museum's name and his signature.

Archivio Grafica Italiana:

Magazine advertisement for a syrup that communicates the idea of stopping coughs and flu through the illustration of a traffic light with red light (stop) turned on.

Display:

Medical advertisement for Dompé Pharmaceutical (Milan) product. “I have attempted to escape from the geometrical and typographical straightjacket imposed by Swiss constructivism and the influence of Mondrian” (The Work of Franco Grignani by Alan Bartram, Typographica 1, June 1960).

“Long before Playstation came along, Pieter Brattinga (1931–2004) was creating exhibition posters like this one, whilst working at his father's printing house Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co. He organized over 80 exhibitions designing some fantastic modernist posters. Many of these posters can be seen at the fantastic graphic design museum in the Netherlands. The company was the printers of choice for designers such as Willem Sandberg, Wim Crouwel, and Benno Wissing.” — konstruktive

Online reproductions of this poster depict very different colors. My hunch is that the original is closer to the CMYK colors (above), not the primary colors (below).

Medical advertisement for Dompé Pharmaceutical (Milan) easily identifiable by repeating ampule silhouettes as background image. “I have attempted to escape from the geometrical and typographical straightjacket imposed by Swiss constructivism and the influence of Mondrian” (The Work of Franco Grignani by Alan Bartram, Typographica 1, June 1960).

— Display

Even in Dessau, buildings are unwisely adorned with ITC Bauhaus, a child of the American ’70s, not the German ’20s.

It might be disappointing to some, but most of what the Bauhaus printed in their early years was set not in geometric sans serifs but in art nouveau flavoured text faces. The initial Bauhaus manifest from 1919 (below), for example, used Ohio by Schriftguss AG (LTC Pabst Oldstyle is the most similar digital font available). Back then, one had to content oneself with the fonts a printer had in stock.

Typical early Bauhaus documents using serif typefaces.

Later, the typefaces used by the Bauhaus fit better within the ideas of the “New Typography”: a clear, modern, industrial atmosphere achieved by anonymously designed, rather dark Grotesque faces stripped of all unnecessary decorative elements.

Breite Halbfette Grotesk in a 1912 Schelter & Giesecke specimen

A 1925 announcement by Herbert Bayer using Breite Halbfette Grotesk. FF Bau (2004) is a digital interpretation of this face.

This drawing by Herbert Bayer wasn’t produced as a typeface.

A typeface in this vein often found in their later materials is Breite halbfette Grotesk by Schelter & Giesecke, recently revived as FF Bau by Christian Schwartz. Others are Venus and Ideal Grotesk, later recycled in Monotype Grotesque.

But the typographic ideas of the Bauhaus, above all Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt, went further. The radical constructivist designs we now immediately connect with “Bauhaus”, however, were only carried out in drafts — drawings and lettering — never in a typeface.

Paul Renner’s Futura was clearly inspired by the concepts of the Bauhaus (see experimental letters) but came out no earlier than 1927. Then, however, it was accepted as the “type of our time”.

The typeface ITC Bauhaus is a design from 1975 by Ed Benguiat and Victor Caruso inspired by the ideas of Bayer, Schmidt et al, but it is not a revival of any Bauhaus design.

So, what typefaces should we choose to be more imaginative?

Typefaces like the ones used by the Bauhaus. For example:

• FF Bau
• Venus
• Vonness (large family based on Venus)
• Monotype Grotesque
• Basic Commercial
• Gothic 726
• ARS Region

Geometric, constructivist typefaces based on the design ideas of the Bauhaus:

• Albers
• Bayer Universal
• Joost
• Erbar
• Futura
• Dessau
• Neuzeit Grotesk
• Nobel
• Super Grotesk
• Avenir
• PTL Superla
• Twentieth Century

Also check out this FontList at FontShop.