Luisen-Institut and Gotha III ads (1906)

Two illustrated print ads for boarding schools from 1906.

The one shown above is for the Luisen-Institut in Bad Kreuznach (then in the Kingdom of Prussia’s Rhine Province) – an “excellently recommended finishing school for daughters” offering “thorough scientific and domestic training in addition to solid education” with the “opportunity for exams in handicraft and language as well as higher teacher’s exams”. The annual fee of 900 ℳ included access to the big garden and brine baths.

The headline is set in one of the German versions of Bradley, without ch ligature, underlined and with lowered caps. “Luisen-Institut” is in a Fette Schwabacher (with double hyphen), “Töchter-Pensionat” in a Breite Gotisch, with single hyphen and ligatures for ch and ſi. The copy is set in a generic Fraktur, with Schwabacher for emphasis. The only roman type is the fat face used for highlighting the principal’s name.

The advert shown below is for another Pensionat in Gotha (then part of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha). It plugs the “beautiful villa with big garden” and its “certified in-house instructors from Paris and England”, and promises “excellent teaching and preparation for the Prussian teacher’s exam”.

The design features several of the typefaces mentioned above, in different roles. Breite Gotisch is here used for the biggest line, accompanied by the number and “Penſionat” in Eckmann-Schrift. Note that Eckmann came with dedicated glyphs for the Roman numerals Ⅰ Ⅴ Ⅹ that were different in design from its capital letters I V X. Bradley appears for the principals’ names, with ſ (long s) and ü.