In 1968, Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) was on tour in Europe, possibly with material from her upcoming album Misty Blue. For the concert at Rheinhalle (today: Tonhalle) Düsseldorf on February 8, Günther Kieser designed a colorful poster in DIN A1 landscape format.

For “ELLA” and “’68”, he used a typeface that might have originated around 1899 at the Theinhardt foundry under the name Viktoria. In 1967, Kieser already worked with Viktoria for his Soul Time poster.

In January 2024, Michele Casanova released his open-source digitization under the name DisSenso.

The liberation of typographic letterforms: some seventy years after its creation, Viktoria (a.k.a. Phoenix, Medea) leaves the page and starts to fly. Thanks to the possibilities of photographic lenses, poster designer Günther Kieser could present the show’s lineup as if the multicolored words were projected onto the bodies of soul duo Sam & Dave, accompanied by a shower of stars.

Soul Time was jointly organized by Lippmann & Rau and the Youth Welfare Office of the City of Frankfurt. It took place on November 11, 1967, at Kongresshalle Frankfurt. In addition to Sam & Dave, the evening offered performances by Percy Sledge, Arthur Conley, Little Charles, Linda Carr, and Sam Baker.

Large-format advert for the Südbahnhotel, a former grand hotel near the Semmering Pass in the Austrian Alps. Constructed around 1850, the Semmering railway is commonly referred to as the world’s first true mountain railway, and is still fully functional as a part of the Südbahn, or Southern Railway, that connects Vienna with Graz. The hotel first opened its doors in 1882.

This ad from 1913 uses a typeface that went under various names, including Viktoria. The Poppelbaum foundry in Vienna sold the design as Phönix.

Viktoria and Römische Antiqua in use for an advert from 1906 for the handicrafts by the Rheinische Glashütten-Actien-Gesellschaft.

The Rheinische Glashütten AG in Ehrenfeld near Cologne was one of the most important glassworks in the Rhineland from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Their glassware in the styles of historicism and Art Nouveau has been awarded numerous prizes and medals at international and national arts and crafts exhibitions and world fairs. Designers such as Peter Behrens, Joseph Maria Olbrich, and Koloman Moser worked for the company.

Page with classified ads for German North Sea resorts and the respective ferry connections, from the Reise- und Bäder-Anzeiger (“Travel and spa gazette”) in Reclams Universum, a weekly magazine printed and published by Philipp Reclam jun. in Leipzig, 1909.

While the title (“Deutsche Nordseebäder”) shows some clunky lettering, the ads themselves are set in a range of jobbing typefaces that were in fashion at the time. The credit line at the very bottom is the only occurence of a fraktur. The single display face that can be classified as blackletter is Bradley, see “Wyk Insel Föhr”. The actual font in use is probably Altgotisch or one of the numerous other German copies of Bradley.

“Wangerooge” and “Westerland-Sylt” both combine Viktoria (AKA Phönix, Medea) with an enlarged and lowered initial W from Siegfried. Another interesting face is the one used for “Wittdün”: It appears to be the solid version of Alexandra, which in turn appears to be Berthold’s bichromatic copy of Washington (Central). The use of all caps for emphasis is limited to “Borkum” (Romana) and “Juist” (Fette Bauersche Antiqua or similar).

Head of the Reise- und Bäder-Anzeiger with lettering modeled after Eckmann, including a fancy highlight version. The smaller text is set in Sorbonne-Circular, an italic with swash caps that was part of Berthold’s recutting of Cheltenham.

Kräuter-Elixier (“herbal elixir”). The center-aligned typography shows three sizes of Eckmann-Schrift (1900). The long s (ſ) appears only in the sch trigraph (“verschiedener”, “geschätztes”). Contrary to the traditional rules, it’s not used for “wirksamen” or “Bestandteile”.

Labels for the use in pharmacies and drugstores, printed by Fr. Melsbach, Sobernheim. Established in 1832, the Melsbach company is still in the business of pharmacy supplies. Several labels found in a Melsbach album from 1886 are reproduced in the October 1966 issue of Gebrauchsgraphik and show predominantly lettering. The labels featured in this post were made about twenty years later, around 1905, and are typographic, i.e. they were made with the use of fonts.

See more pharmaceutic labels in altpapiersammler’s album on Flickr.

Lenilaxin uses a typeface that was sold by many foundries under various names, incl. Viktoria (Theinhardt), Phönix (Poppelbaum), and Medea (Flinsch; later continued by Bauer). The smaller text is in one of the light cuts added by German foundries to their Bradley adaptations, see Original-Altgotisch. The price is in Korinna (1904).

Peru-Kognak is set in Nelson, the German name for Cosmopolitan (1895) The roman is Schelter & Giesecke’s Romanisch (1889).

The label for Thymian-Keuchhusten-Saft (“Thyme syrup for whooping cough”) pairs Eckmann with Original-Altgotisch and a condensed grotesk.

Frangula-Elixier ft. more Eckmann for the name. The text is set in two weights of Berthold’s Secession. The price info uses Korinna.

Keuchhusten-Elixier ft. Liane halbfett (1909). “Gebrauchs-Anweisung” is in a condensed grotesk. The instructions are set in Tauchnitz-Antiqua, a stylistic variant of Schelter-Antiqua. distinguished by different forms for ‘dkvwxyAKMRUVWX’ (and probably also ‘Y’), in most cases replacing curved diagonals with straight ones.

Lenilaxin combines Schelter-Antiqua with two grotesks. All type is reproduced in negative.