Venus Motorroller
This German scooter ad from the 1950s uses a rather remarkable typeface that has fallen into oblivion — Prägefest by Eduard Lautenbach (Ludwig & Mayer, 1926). The eyecatching bold script was not the very first one of its kind — Adscript, Typo Upright Bold, and, more directly, Lautenbach’s own Markant (also Ludwig & Mayer, 1909) are among the forerunners. Yet it certainly sparked a trend in German typefounding, see Phänomen and Bernhard Handschrift (1927), Mammut (1928), Wolfram (1930), Signal, Salut and Lautsprecher (1931), or Achtung and Energos (1932). In his Letterpress Memories*, Georg Kandler writes:
Prägefest started a new chapter in the production of script typefaces. Following the cursive scripts — with letters connected by joining strokes — that hitherto were limited to delicate applications, Prägefest dares a leap into the broad field of advertising. Robust and without overhangs, with sturdy strokes, it was […] outstandingly suited to the typesetting of ads, in which its tenacity played a crucial role for impressing the cardboard mats.
Latter is a step in the stereotyping process. This quality gave the typeface its name: prägefest is German for “impressing-proof”. Stempel had the same design as Reklame Handschrift (“advertising handwriting”). For markets abroad, Ludwig & Mayer came up with a less descriptive and more poetic name — Samson Script.
A few years later, in 1931, Monotype made a typeface that is different in most details, but very close in the overall appearance. This Series 322 is credited to Fritz Max Steltzer and is simply named Script, or Script Bold, and, in the U.S., Broad-Stroke Cursive. The digital revival is known as Monotype Script, or Script MT. According to Monotype, the design is “based on early twentieth-century German script writing styles”, but the features in common with Prägefest are striking. Eduard Lautenbach didn’t live to see this me-too release — he died in 1927, one year after his Prägefest was released.
* Alphabete. Erinnerungen an den Bleisatz. Kornwestheim: Minner-Verlag, 1995. My translation.
Character set of Prägefest — image courtesy of the late Georg Kraus AKA Bleisetzer. Kandler: “Another novelty was the relocation of the lowercase entry strokes onto the cap sorts, avoiding annoying overhangs.” Apart from the variants with high and low connector, the font includes alternates for ‘r’ and ‘M’; swash terminal forms for ‘g’, ‘n’, ‘r’, ‘t’; ligatures for ‘Sch’ (a common German trigraph, with a different ‘S’), ‘Cie’ (Compagnie) and ‘Co’ (Company). A different specimen additionally shows an alternate ‘H’ with closed top loop, a non-descending ‘P’ with minimal bowl, and ligatures for ‘ch’, ‘ck’, ‘ff’, ‘ss’.
Monotype Script (digital version), for comparison: Contrast is slightly higher, bottom terminals in ‘m’ and ‘n’ are flat, counters of ‘a’, ‘d’, ‘g’ are round, ‘z’ has no crossbar, ‘c’ is more closed, ‘u’ is wider, ‘g’ has a bigger loop, ‘k’ is open and has a more vertical leg. The spacing is less even, most notably in the gap after ‘s’.
3 Comments on “Venus Motorroller”
Nice history, Flo! I always wanted to know more about the origin of Monotype Script.
I’d like to see what Monotype Script Light (Series 475) looks like. Do you know of a sample?
The feature “Making headlines: printing the Guardian newspaper, 1921–1987” by Emma Golding has some great images from the GNM Archive showing the process of stereotyping.