First issued by Berthold and its
subsidiary Bauer &
Co in 1898 as Accidenz-Grotesk. G.G.
Lange regarded Royal-Grotesk as the key source and
credited the design to Ferdinand Theinhardt, but that is refuted,
see Eckehart Schumacher-Gebler’s article in Schriftgestalten
(2008), Indra
Kupferschmid’s blog post (2012), and, most detailed,
Dan Reynolds’s article and lecture (2019).
The base style was derived from Schattierte Grotesk, a shaded sans produced
by Bauer &
Co in 1894/95. [Reynolds]
Many loosely related styles from various sources were incorporated
into the family, see also Akzidenz-Grotesk Condensed and
Royal-Grotesk.
Distributed in the US and UK as
Standard [Meggs]
and commonly used in the 1950s–60s.
Revised and extended by Lange as Serie 57 in roman (1959?)
and italic (1967) and Serie 58 (bold,
1959?). Smaller sizes (6–12pt) of the roman and bold were
adopted for the Linotype in 1962. The
larger sizes (14–48pt; italic: 14–36pt) of Serie 57 for hand
composition have a revised design distinguished by a tailless ‘a’.
[Probe
No. 476]
AG
Book (or AG Buch, 1969) is a derivative
that brings the design closer to Helvetica.
AG
Old Face (1984) is a redrawing made for phototypesetting
that returns to the original forms prior to the 1950s
homogenization.
Copied by Scangraphic as Ad Grotesk and by
Bitstream as Gothic 725. Linotype’s digital version was
renamed to Basic More…
First issued by Berthold and its subsidiary Bauer & Co in 1898 as Accidenz-Grotesk. G.G. Lange regarded Royal-Grotesk as the key source and credited the design to Ferdinand Theinhardt, but that is refuted, see Eckehart Schumacher-Gebler’s article in Schriftgestalten (2008), Indra Kupferschmid’s blog post (2012), and, most detailed, Dan Reynolds’s article and lecture (2019). The base style was derived from Schattierte Grotesk, a shaded sans produced by Bauer & Co in 1894/95. [Reynolds] Many loosely related styles from various sources were incorporated into the family, see also Akzidenz-Grotesk Condensed and Royal-Grotesk.
Distributed in the US and UK as Standard [Meggs] and commonly used in the 1950s–60s.
Revised and extended by Lange as Serie 57 in roman (1959?) and italic (1967) and Serie 58 (bold, 1959?). Smaller sizes (6–12pt) of the roman and bold were adopted for the Linotype in 1962. The larger sizes (14–48pt; italic: 14–36pt) of Serie 57 for hand composition have a revised design distinguished by a tailless ‘a’. [Probe No. 476]
AG Book (or AG Buch, 1969) is a derivative that brings the design closer to Helvetica.
AG Old Face (1984) is a redrawing made for phototypesetting that returns to the original forms prior to the 1950s homogenization.
Copied by Scangraphic as Ad Grotesk and by Bitstream as Gothic 725. Linotype’s digital version was renamed to Basic Commercial for trademark reasons. Berthold’s digitization was reworked as Akzidenz-Grotesk Next (2006). Akzidenz Grotesk Pro (2007) adds Cyrillics (by Vladimir Yefimov, Condensed by Gayaneh Bagdasaryan) and Greek (by Panos Haratzopoulos) [Typophile]. CastleType’s Standard CT and Bryce Wilner’s Standard (2017) are digital interpretations that use the export name. Neue Serie57 (2022) is based of Lange’s reworking, and specifically the larger sizes of the Regular.
