Source: gallica.bnf.fr License: All Rights Reserved.

Issue 6, April 25, 1928

French weekly magazine Vu was the brainchild of Lucien Vogel (1886–1954). It was first published on March 21, 1928, with a logo designed by Cassandre. 637 more issues followed until May 29, 1940. Vu is best known for pioneering photojournalism, featuring works by contributing photographers such as Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Brassaï, Robert Capa, and André Kertész.

From the very start, it included a section titled “Les distractions de la semaine” (“The week’s distractions”) with various puzzles, or problèmes. Initially, the crosswords came with handwritten numbers, see this example from issue 5. In the sixth issue from April 25, 1928, Vu introduced solutions for the crosswords. These no longer used lettering. Instead, they were composed from a special font. Simply named Mots Croisés (French for “crosswords”), it offered blank and black squares as well as such with capital letters for clues and solutions, internal and external numbers, and border elements. Mots Croisés is shown in Deberny & Peignot’s Spécimen Générale from around 1936.

Last month, Poem released Phông, a digital typeface inspired by crossword puzzles. It was created by Khải Quang Nguyễn during his research residency at Atelier National de Recherche Typographique. While his primary inspiration were the puzzles in Phong-Hóa, a Vietnamese satirical journal first published in 1932, he also looked into Vu – which led me to Mots Croisés. Cảm ơn, Khải!

Source: gallica.bnf.fr License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail from issue 21, August 8, 1928

The other fonts in use for “Les distractions de la semaine” are worth a look, too. While the dancing fat face with the checkered fill used for the title is lettering, the thin caps for “Résultats” in the first image are typographic: they come from the generically named Antique Fine. The puzzles themselves are set in Beaudoire’s Elzevir, which started about 1860 as a commercial copy of Louis Perrin’s Caract. Headings are in the accompanying Elzevir Gras, which has more in common with Alexander Phemister’s Old Style Antique No. 7.

Source: gallica.bnf.fr License: All Rights Reserved.

Issue 21, August 8, 1928

The bold italic caps used for the solution du problème № 37 (above) are from Sphinx italique. One of the sans serifs seen in issue 249 from March 1933 (below) is Consul, which was available from several French foundries, including from Peignot & Fils as Antiques maigres larges.

Source: typedrawers.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail from issue 259, March 1, 1933

The Esther Baker Steele Hall of Physics was erected in 1898–1899 on the Syracuse University campus. It’s named after educator and philanthropist Esther Baker Steele (1835–1911) who lectured before the Syracuse University in 1897. Having served as Trustee from 1895, she was one of the most generous benefactors of the university. The building was designed by architect Edwin H. Gaggin, Class of 1892.

The typeface used for the caption on this picture postcard originated in 1895 at the Berthold foundry in Berlin under the name Hansa-Kursiv, together with a bolder style named Regina-Kursiv. The italic with the swelling strokes and round terminals was also carried by many other type foundries in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, and Russia. See also Favorit-Grotesk for a related upright design.

C. F. DRURY for Latest POST CARDS

C.F. Drury was a printer and publisher in Southport, England, north of Liverpool. This advert for postcards was probably printed around 1900, based on the featured typefaces. Regina-Kursiv is the youngest of the four: it originated in 1895 at the Berthold foundry. It was also sold in the UK, including by James Marr and Co. in Edinburgh.

Detail: “Healthy children has every mother who uses Alippi’s Hygienic Milk Bottle and Rubber Cup Dripper.”

Eckmann-Schrift was first cast in 1900 by the Rudhard’sche Gießerei in Offenbach, which from 1906 on was known as Gebr. Klingspor. In 1902, a bolder weight was added. This ad uses the original style, with its double hyphen, long s (ſ), and ligatures for ch, ck and tz (in “Chemnitz”, but not in “benutzt”). The ornaments are part of the typeface, too, while the manicule was not. “Triumph-Nasenbecher” is set in Carola-Grotesk (Berthold, 1896).

The Alippi company was established in 1877 as a specialist store for rubber goods and bandages. While founder Oskar Felix Alippi dedicated himself to the development of a seamless rubber hose, his wife Agnes Elisabeth took over the business side of things. In 1908, around the time this ad was issued, she ran the store on Innere Plauensche Straße in Zwickau, Saxony, named “A.E. Alippi”. Hermann Friedrich Alippi (their son?) was in charge of the manufacturing business in nearby Chemnitz.

Detail: “Bathe the nose with the Triumph nose cup. Best remedy for colds and nasal catarrh, suitable for steam bath.”

Poster from the collection of the National Library of Norway for an appearance of the circus led by Norwegian wrestler and strongman, Karl Norbeck, with performances that include “Bullpunching”. Someone has written 1900 as a date on the poster, but Norbeck apparently hadn’t purchased his circus until 1904 (the next year with June 23rd falling on a Saturday, as specified on the poster, would have been 1906).

Regardless of its exact date, the poster features a smorgasbord of decorative 19th-century typefaces typical of the typographic styles at the turn of the 20th century – some that were fairly common at the time and others that are much harder to find in historical use. The N in ‘Norbeck’ appears to be upside-down.

The printing credit at the bottom of the poster specifies the source as ‘‘Trondhjem, Lie & Sundts Bogtrykkeri”.

See the related listing at the National Library of Norway.

Full transcription:

CIRKUS VARIETEE.
Brydekjæmpen
Norbeck
Lørdag den 23de Juni Kl. 8 Aften
paa Skøitebanetomten.
Optræden af den
Norske Turner Ole Kristiansen.
Enestaaende Præstationer i Stolpyramide, Trapetz og romerske Ringe.
Mr. Oscardo.
Haandekvilibrist, enestaaende uden Conkurrance.
Hr. Westby.
Nutidens bedste Slangeimitatør.
– Non plus ultra –
Komiker Bøe.
Søskende Westby, Norsk Halling- og Springdans.
– Orginale Dragter og Dans. –
Optræden af den berømte Dumme Peter Balskansky.
Stor Suces fra Akershusfestlighederne.
Hr. Norbeck
giver Opvisning i
amerikansk Køllesving, Løftning.
Løfter Vegt fra 50 Kg. till 500.
Nyt. Bullpunching. Interessant.
Billetpriser: 1ste Plads Kr. 1.00, 2den Plads 75, staaende 50 Ore.
Billetter erholdes ved Indgangen fra 1 Time før Forestillingen begynder.
God Musik.

Ærbødigst
Karl Norbeck,
Direktør.

Trondhjem, Lie & Sundts Bogtrykkeri.

This album showing 63 models of cottages and rural architecture was published by Albin Michel, Paris, in 1912. The hardcover edition measures 37×27 cm and has 175 pages, with 63 plates illustring small rural constructions with groundfloors. It’s bound in green half cloth with colored illustrated boards.

The title page shown above exhibits a colorful mix of typefaces from the Belle Époque. The first line is set in a typeface issued by Deberny & Cie around 1900 as Les Modernes. Today it’s better known under the name used by English foundry Stephenson Blake, De Vinne Ornamented. “Modèles de Contrats” shows the condensed width, Les Modernes étroit. “Album de 63 Modèles” uses a typeface with American roots: Washington (Central, c. 1886) was available from various European foundries, including Haas in Switzerland (as Columbia) and Van Loey-Nouri in Brussels (as Fantaisies). The largest type is German: Herold was first cast by Berthold in 1901. It has several alternates and is here used with two different forms for C. The condensed sans serif used in all caps is unidentified. The italic chosen for the line below is the one from Grasset (Peignot & Fils). Its roman is used in all caps for “avec prix à forfait” (without accents). The publisher’s name is set in Française, which is a narrow version of Auriol.

See more plates from this book in the Flickr album by Patricia M (taffeta).

1889. “Registro” uses a typeface related to French Oldstyle, while “Atti di Morte” is in a version of the design later known as Bruce Mikita, which was sold by Italian foundry Società Urania as Pekino. “Parte I” is (similar to) Lining Gothic or Interchangeable Gothic.

These are cover pages from the Salerno, Italy death certificates, "Atti di Morte," from between 1889 and 1901. I found these during research into my Italian heritage, and they were too cool to not share.

1892. “Registro” uses Mortised, patented by Hermann Ihlenburg for MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan in 1884. The bifurcated Tuscan caps with outlined shade used for “Atti di Morte” go back to Henry Brehmer’s Ornamented No. 1540 for Bruce (1876). “Anno” is set in a style like Old Style Bold. “Degli” and the body copy might be Mediäval-Egyptienne (similar, but without beard on G: Old Style Antique).

1901. “Il Presidente” and “Il Giudice Delegato” use a style known in the U.S. as French Antique/Clarendon Extended.

1909. “Atti di Morte” is a version of Zeitungs-Grotesque, which was sold in Italy by Reggiani (as Turandot) and by Nebiolo (as Etrusco nerissima). “Ufficio” is in Washington.

1917. “Atti di Morte” is set in De Vinne Bold (cf. this specimen by Barnhart Brothers & Spindler)

From Eye magazine:

End papers from Penrose’s Pictorial Annual, 1899, letterpress. This edition of the Annual devoted considerable space to the then emerging three-colour process. Among the articles was ‘Six colours from three. An object lesson for the printer’ for which the end papers served as illustrations. They demonstrated the range of colours generated by the three process inks, while simultaneously functioning as backgrounds for companies advertising relevant expertise.

The article’s author was justifiably pleased with the idea and its outcome: ‘To the purely artistic mind, the result shown on these end papers may appear crude and perhaps vulgar, but to the thousands of printers throughout the country who are not familiar with the subject, and who find it difficult to understand, we think this simple object lesson will explain more eloquently than the most elaborate supplement the powers of the three-colour process’

The endpapers advertise the the Measured Colour Filters by Sanger-Shepherd, an emerging company in the field of color photography, and the services of Carl Hentschel, Ltd. Founded by Carl Hentschel (1864–1930), inventor of the Hentschel-Colortype process, this reproduction firm “produced engravings for numerous forms of printed media”.

The largest words are set in Columbus, with its distinctive curly forms for C and O. It’s paired with De Vinne (“Sanger-Shepherd”, “Penrose & Co.” (with alternate S), “Fleet Street” etc.) and the related Heyer (“Photo-Engravers”). “Carl Hentschel Colortype Process” uses a version of Regina-Kursiv.

La Libertà Economica was an economics magazine founded in Bologna in November 1903 by Alberto Giovannini (who recognized himself as a pupil of Tullio Martello and therefore he followed the so-called “Ferrara school”) and directed by him until it ended its publications in 1926.

When at the congress of Bologna (October 8-10, 1922) a series of groups of varied liberal inspiration tried to give themselves a national organizational structure founding the Italian Liberal Party, Giovannini became its secretary and his magazine in some way the organ up to the end of its publication.

(source: “Dizionario del liberalismo italiano”, Rubbettino Editore, 2011).

The magazine’s masthead uses Herman Ihlenburg’s Columbus (MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, 1890), which is used in smaller point sizes for other indications on the front and back cover. Columbus was locally available from Urania under the name Columbia (later also from Società Augusta as Victor Hugo and from Reggiani as Rossana).

Other typefaces used are Old Style Extended (Central Type Foundry, circa 1892), Regina-Kursiv (Berthold, circa 1895, available from Augusta as Mercurio), Latin Condensed (Stephenson Blake, 1873), Murillo (Schelter & Giesecke, 1897, carried by Urania as Estienne), and an unidentified Modern/Scotch with italic and bold. The condensed grotesque used at the bottom appears to be Bauer’s Neueste schmale Grotesk or similar. The light sans used for the number and date at the top as well as for “Succursali” looks like Schelter & Giesecke’s Breite magere Grotesk, which was sold by Reggiani as Eia.

Ad by Menck & Hambrock, “a German manufacturer of earth moving and ramming equipment and once one of the world’s leading companies”, founded in 1868. [Wikipedia]

A triumph of DIY sewing: Polich’s almost finished and semi-finished clothing items (trademarked). Fitting and modern elegance of the highest quality. The latest novelties. Robes starting from 6 Marks.

This ad by August Polich from 1907 exclusively uses italics. The bold display face is Anzeigen-Rundschrift, a stand-alone cursive cast by Woellmer as Anzeigen-Rundschrift before 1894. The smaller type is Torpedo-Zirkular, the italic member of the Torpedo series, issued by the local Hoffmeister foundry in 1898–1899 in four styles.

August Polich’s textile store was established in Leipzig before 1866. In 1898, the building known as the Merkurhaus sported Germany’s first escalator. In the Nazi era, the Jewish company was “aryanized” and acquired by C. & A. Brenninkmeyer. The building was demolished in 1935 and replaced by a new one.

Something special was in the drinks of Jean-Marc Cerrone and photographer Patrick Perroquin when they came up with this concept for a electro disco album cover: Cerrone unbuttons his shirt in a surgery room, while behind him three masked men and a plastic heart lie under an operating table adorned by an anatomy dummy.

What we do know:

1) Wikipedia:

Supernature is Cerrone's third album, released in September 1977. It was released in France by Malligator Label. It is known also as Cerrone III, since it is the third album by Cerrone, who labeled his albums with a number.

2) The album's number, 3, is hand-drawn, and accompanied by two typefaces. The title of the album is set in Quicksilver, released no longer than a year before this album came out. For the artist's name, Childs was chosen. Not a hot new font, Childs was designed almost a century earlier (1892) by Herman Ihlenburg. Cerrone seems to have adopted it as a logotype for most of his albums.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: All Rights Reserved.

This week’s invoice was issued in 1931 by one of the many furniture industries located in Themar, a small Thuringian town also known as “Möbelstadt (furniture town) Themar”. It combines two display members of the greater Erbar-Grotesk series, the inline Phosphor (for “RECHNUNG”) and the reversed Lucina (for the bank account information). Just like in last week’s example, Lucina’s border elements were used to compose fancy ribbons. This time, we get to see the lighter weight of the negative all-caps typeface.

License: All Rights Reserved.

2× Erbar, 2× Romanisch

The company’s name at the top is set in one of the numerous modernized oldstyle faces issued in the late 19th century under names such as Römisch, Romanisch, Lateinisch, Romana, etc. While the styles of regular weight have roots in the French Elzevir revival, the bold display companions go back to Gustave F. Schroeder’s De Vinne (Central Type Foundry, 1890), which in turn is influenced by the capitals of Römische Antiqua as designed by Albert Anklam for Genzsch & Heyse, and acquired by the De Vinne Press in 1885. [Bertheau: Buchdruckschriften im 20. Jahrhundert]

The pointy ear in ‘g’ and the relatively open ‘a’ suggest that the version used here might be Romanisch halbfett as cast by Schelter & Giesecke in 1895. These details, among others, are different in the smaller line below (“Lengfeld/Themar”), which looks closer to Römisch halbfett by Ludwig Wagner (1900), cf. the snippets from Seemann.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: All Rights Reserved.

Snippets from Seemann’s Handbuch der Schriftarten (1926), showing Romanisch (Schelter & Giesecke) and Römisch (Ludwig Wagner).

To contemporary eyes, these faces may appear like whimsical precursors of Times New Roman — or to quote Dan Reynolds, “Romana is such a drunk TNR”. For a long time, Romana (in two slightly different interpretations by Bitstream and URW++/E+F/Linotype) was about the only digitally available option. Luckily, this is no longer true: In 2016, Camelot released Rando, “a contemporary homage to German romanesque typefaces from the late 19th / early 20th century”, in two optical sizes. In particular, Maurice Göldner’s interpretation takes cues from Hamburger Römisch (Schriftguss A.G.) and Anker-Romanisch. The latter is another name for the Nr. 20 branch of Schelter & Giesecke’s Romanisch series, probably introduced to distinguish it from other similarly named releases (the foundry’s logotype shows an anchor).

License: All Rights Reserved.

Among digital fonts, Rando Bold (Camelot, middle) and Romana Bold (Bitstream, bottom, tracked +20) come closest to the metal type used for the company’s name.

The extended Grotesk (“SPEISE- UND HERRENZIMMER”, “M.L. Nr.”) is a style that originated at Wagner & Schmidt and was cast by various foundries under different names, including Aurora-Grotesk VII breithalbfett (C.E. Weber) and Edel-Grotesk breit halbfett (Joh. Wagner).

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail with Lucina, Aurora-Grotesk, and Consul.

The smaller sans serif used for the contact information is Consul, a largely forgotten face released by the Berlin foundry Woellmer in 1903. It served as inspiration for DN Grotesk, which later became FF Dagny, see e.g. the ‘f’. Reymund Schröder did a revival of Consul in 5 styles together with Stephan Müller (unreleased).

The most inconspicuous — but therefore all the more interesting — font used in this invoice seems to be another one by Woellmer. It is depicted in a specimen from 1894 as Schreibmaschinen-Schrift (“typewriter typeface”), and is listed in Seemann (1926) under the commercially more viable name Schreibmaschinenschrift Kanzler. It can be seen as an early ancestor of FF Trixie and Co. Kanzler is less extreme and not dirty at all, but with wonky details like the asymmetrical ‘m’, it is not an idealized face like Courier either. Anyway, its purpose was to simulate typewritten text with foundry type, as the specimen text confirms:

This typeface is modeled on the type of the typewriter, and the prints made from it are, in fact, deceptively similar to the typescripts produced by the typewriter. For best results, choose a printing ink similar in hue to the violet, red or blue color of the typewriter.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail featuring Schreibmaschinenschrift Kanzler, in combination with actual typewritten text.

The advice regarding color was neglected here, and yet the result is reasonably convincing, thanks to the irregularities introduced by letterpress printing. However, the direct comparison with actual typewritten text reveals that there’s still room for improvement. Maybe that’s why Woellmer also made a textured typewriter face named Schreibmaschinenschrift Rekord, also known as No. 2000.

By the way, the only broken letterforms on this piece of ephemera can be found in the handwritten line in Kurrent, “Bezahlt am 22. 8. 1931 abzüglich 5% Skonto 72.20 ℳ.”

Kudos to Jens Jørgen Hansen for kindly sharing some pictures of Consul and Schreibmaschinen-Schrift to verify the IDs!

Ad for snap fasteners by Prym, Germany’s oldest family business, founded in 1530 and still in the haberdashery business.

Ad for Hoh & Hahne in Leipzig, specialist for photography supplies, 1900

“Noblest Christmas tree hangings”, wrapped in parchment paper.

Detail