First issued by Berthold in 1898 as
Accidenz-Grotesk. Many loosely related styles from
various sources were incorporated into the family. Further extended
and homogenized by G.G. Lange from the late 1950s on. Lange regards
Royal-Grotesk
as the key source and credits it to Ferdinand Theinhardt, but that
is disputed, see Eckehart Schumacher-Gebler’s article in Tino Graß:
Schriftgestalten (2008) and Indra Kupferschmid’s blog
post.
Named Standard
in the US. AG Old Face (1984) is a redrawing made for
phototypesetting that returns to the original forms prior to the
1950s homogenization.
Linotype’s digital version was renamed to Basic
Commercial for trademark reasons. Berthold’s
digitization was reworked as Akzidenz More…
First issued by Berthold in 1898 as Accidenz-Grotesk. Many loosely related styles from various sources were incorporated into the family. Further extended and homogenized by G.G. Lange from the late 1950s on. Lange regards Royal-Grotesk as the key source and credits it to Ferdinand Theinhardt, but that is disputed, see Eckehart Schumacher-Gebler’s article in Tino Graß: Schriftgestalten (2008) and Indra Kupferschmid’s blog post.
Named Standard in the US. AG Old Face (1984) is a redrawing made for phototypesetting that returns to the original forms prior to the 1950s homogenization.
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]
