Date: 1901
Designer:
Peter Behrens
Foundry:
Klingspor
Location:
Offenbach Am Main, Germany
Current equivalent:
Behrensschrift (digitised by Dieter Steffmann)
See also:
Eckmannschrift
Technologies:
Metal (foundry)
Postscript
Truetype
Famous for:
Rational attempt to 'romanise' blackletter.
Applications: Experimental and Expressive
Ubiquity:
Rarely used
Category:
Modernised Blackletter
Stress: Angled
Serifs: Calligraphic
Design history:
This typeface has two weights and accompanying italic, which probably classifies it as a Germanised roman or 'antiqua', but like Eckmannschrift, this type is hard to classify with the existing terminology. Reflecting a trend to update traditional gothic lettering styles with Art Nouveau or Jugendstil characteristics, these display types appear as a softened, modernized form of blackletter script. Peter Behrens was an architect by training, also a painter and commercial artist who became celebrated as the designer of the world's first corporate identity program for AEG Berlin (the Allegemeine Electrisches Gessellschaft) in the early 1900s. He went on to design other typefaces for the Klingspor Foundry.
profile 77
picture: Black Dog & Leventhal Pubs