▾ Universal-Schrift 1925

At the Bauhaus many ideas corresponded with the principles of the elementary typography. Among its followers was Herbert Bayer, a former Bauhaus student himself and later typographic director at the school in Dessau. It was he who designed the lettering on the new Bauhaus building and in 1925 he proceeded to design the concept for a “universal” alphabet. It was by far not a complete typeface, rather a set of characters, constructed using triangle and compass in a geometric system. At first the letter shapes were quite narrow, but a wider version was added in a 1927 revision. On the one hand, the letters are truly geometrical, however, on the other hand it is this characteristic that makes them illegible in smaller sizes. No optical corrections had been applied to the letterforms.

Some of Bayer’s Bauhaus colleagues had designed geometric alphabets of their own. Sketches of Josef Alber’s grid-based stencil type were published in 1926, but none of the Bauhaus type designs were ever cast in metal. Consequently they were hand-drawn for every respective application.

▾ Erbar-Grotesk 1926

The first German geometric sans to be released was Erbar-Grotesk with the Ludwig & Mayer type foundry in 1926. Its eponymous designer Jakob Erbar defined the circle as a basic element on which the typeface was built — note the almost perfectly circular capital ‘O’. In early type specimens, the foundry claimed that Erbar-Grotesk was free from antics following the aim to develop a “healthy” typeface, to one day replace the “old characterless grotesk typefaces” and to “establish itself in every well-equipped composing room in the long run”. ³ Between 1926 and 1930 Erbar-Grotesk was extended to a large family of weights and styles in exemplary manner: it ranged from light to bold and their italic counterparts as well as condensed versions plus a couple of rather playful outline styles for headlines and initials. Lucina, lichte fette Grotesk, Lumina and Lux were all relatives of the Erbar family. Strong characteristics of Erbar-Grotesk can be seen through its two-story lowercase ‘a’ as well as the significant ‘ß’, a ligature with both an ascender and a descender. The influence of Erbar-Grotesk can still be found on the street signs in the western part of Berlin.

▾ Futura 1927

The release of Futura the following year easily provokes the debate whether it was influenced by Erbar-Grotesk or whether it was possibly the other way around. In fact, Paul Renner had already presented his type design to an audience during a lecture at the Kölner Werbeschule in 1925, where Jakob Erbar happened to be teaching. ⁴ Erbar on the other hand claims to have begun his design several years earlier. Furthermore, Futura’s capital letters show a strong resemblance to a type design by Ferdinand Kramer, a colleague of Renner at the school of art in Frankfurt, who had initially designed the so-called Kramer-Grotesk for his family’s hat store. ⁵ Whatever the case may be, again this debate simply proves that more than one person sensed the spirit of the time.

In Renner’s view the ancient Roman capitalis monumentalis was based on the elemental shapes; circle, square, triangle, and thus they served to him as a starting point for Futura’s capital letters. The width of the capital letters changes heavily from character to character. While ‘O’ and ‘G’ are almost perfectly round, letters such as ‘E’, ‘F’ and ‘L’ have the width of only half a square. Later the geometric structure was applied to the lowercase letters as well, however, in comparison to the alphabets designed at the Bauhaus, they were not drawn with triangle and compass. Only some early letterforms were truly constructed, for example ‘a’, ‘g’, ‘m’, ‘n’ and ‘r’, but they were gradually left out of the font.

A general problem arising in the design of typefaces based on geometric shapes is the formation of dark spots whenever heavy bars meet. This meant that several optical corrections had to be applied to the final drawings in order to ensure the impression of Futura’s monolinearity. Especially in the bolder weights, many compromises were made: strokes that go into stems are heavily reduced, some of the capital characters lose their pointed apexes — a key feature in all the lighter weights — and the closing of the lowercase ‘e’ is quite unfortunate as it seems inconsistent and appears to be a misfit in the overall design.

Nevertheless, Futura remains to be the most popular geometric sans of that time. This can certainly also be attributed to the international position that Bauer held as opposed to its competitors. In 1928 Heinrich Jost, artistic advisor at Bauer, emphasizes the foundry’s self-confidence in an article: “Futura may contribute to the movement of the ‘elementary typography’ by steering it into a sophisticated direction”. ⁶

▾ Kabel 1928

Soon after Erbar-Grotesk and Futura, another geometric sans hit the market. In 1928 the Offenbach-based type foundry Klingspor released Kabel by Rudolf Koch, a well-known German type designer. It is possible that it was named after the transatlantic telecommunications cable installed during this period. While Kabel captures the modern look of the 1920s it reveals features of Art Deco at the same time. This successful and friendly mix of two styles is just as characteristic of the typeface as its low x-height and some of its letterforms, for example ‘a’, ‘e’ and ‘g’, manage to maintain their qualities in bolder weights. Another strong feature distinguishing Kabel from its contemporaries is the slanted endings on some of the letters’ tails that make the typeface livelier. In a 1976 redesign of Kabel at the International Typeface Corporation, the x-height was dramatically increased. This resulted in the immediate loss of its geometric proportions and charm. Just like its predecessors, the Kabel family was extended by outline-style relatives. First came Zeppelin in 1929, followed by Prisma a year later.

▾ Berthold Grotesk 1928

In a time when sans serif typefaces were gaining more and more popularity, the Berthold type foundry was well represented with its flagship Akzidenz-Grotesk. However, following the developments in the mid-twenties, Berthold wanted to be every bit up-to-date and released their Hausschnitt (in-house design) Berthold-Grotesk in 1928. Initially it came with regular and light weights and was quickly expanded to an extensive family in the following years. Like its contemporaries Berthold-Grotesk has a small x-height, long ascenders, but relatively short descenders. A significant feature is the capital ‘M’. Its crotch does not go all the way to the baseline, but it is not sitting on the x-height either. The figures are comparatively large and some of their shapes are reminiscent of those in Akzidenz-Grotesk — note the little serif on numeral seven.

A challenge that many faced in designing a geometric typeface was the placement of umlaut dots — diacritics significant to the German language. While they gently sit left and right of an ‘A’s’ apex, they would sometime drop into the ‘U’s’ bowl in the bolder weights. In Berthold-Grotesk bold the dots merge with the umlaut ‘O’, creating a head with teddy bear-like ears. Within the system of different weights Berthold-Grotesk did not lose its initial character and optical compromises were applied carefully. In 1940 a heavy weight followed.

Although Berthold-Grotesk is a fully developed sans serif, available in several weights, it is not so well known today. Perhaps because it was long overshadowed by its distant relative, the extremely popular Akzidenz-Grotesk.

▾ Neuzeit-Grotesk 1930

In 1930 the Stempel type foundry released their new version of a sans serif. Within two years Wilhelm Pischner had designed Neuzeit-Grotesk in light, regular, medium and bold weights before it was produced for both hand-setting and the Linotype system. Even though the concept of the geometric sans clearly underlies this design, it is not emphasized in the specimen texts. At first glance Neuzeit-Grotesk has one major distinction as opposed to its predecessors: a larger x-height. With reduced white space between the lines and equipped with shorter ascenders and descenders, text columns appear more compact.

Overall the shapes are quite wide which helps provide a homogeneous appearance on the page. Strangely, the letterforms are slightly compressed in light and medium. Similar to Berthold-Grotesk the umlaut-dots merge with the ‘O’, but a fine line is spared around the dots, preventing them from actually touching each other. In the original design two lowercase letters have alternative characters: a two-story ‘a’ and the ‘u’ with a stem.

Neuzeit-Grotesk seemed to have been forgotten until it was resurrected by the DIN (German Institute for Standardization) in 1970. Defined as DIN 30640 the regular weight as well as the medium condensed were redrawn for the purpose of “lettering for printing”. ⁷ All of the characters were made a little wider, descenders slightly longer, and the alternative lowercases ‘a’ and ‘u’ became part of the standard font. The switching of characters can change the perception of a typeface; nevertheless Neuzeit-Grotesk maintained much of its original character.