Optik Baart, Köln-Riehl
Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by monsieur ADRIEN and tagged with “pretorian”. License: All Rights Reserved.
Optik Baart is an optician in Riehl, a neighborhood in Cologne’s Nippes district. Founded in 1981 by René Baar, originally at the corner of Hitorfer Straße/Stammheimer Straße, the shop moved to the current address at Stammheimer Straße 118 in 1991.
The logo uses all-caps Pretorian. Note that the first A lost the swashy bit of its crossbar. The bold roman with the flared, cupped serifs originated in England at Patent/Shanks around 1900. It saw a new lease of life after being revived by Letraset in 1972, among others. Pretorian is also used for the neon sign, with an outline around the letterforms.
Documented by Monsieur Adrien in October 2025.
1 Comment on “Optik Baart, Köln-Riehl”
See also Albrecht in Berlin for another optician with a neon sign based on a typeface. In that case, it’s Brush Script – and the neon accentuates the heartline of the letters.