Rauchwaren and the bolder Röntgen Therapie are a pair of alphabets shown in Walter Käch’s Schriften / Lettering / Écritures – geschriebene und gezeichnete Grundformen / The principle types of running hand and drawn characters / Principales famille d’écritures courantes et de letters dessinées (1949). Meant as a lettering guide, not a proper typeface, but probably a major influence on Univers (Frutiger was Käch’s student) and other lettering and typefaces of the time.

“Frutiger developed his first concepts for [Univers] while in school at Zurich, but equally acknowledges Alfred Willimann, another faculty member at the Zurich Kunstgewerbeschule, as a formative influence. However, Frutiger specifically credits his understanding of letters drawn on a grid to Walter Käch.” — Peter Bain, Eye

The bold style was worked into a digital font as Roentgen Therapie (Scott Vander Zee, 2013–2018).

ABC Walter Alte (Dinamo, 2022) is a faithful interpretation of both weights, plus a third alphabet shown by Käch in 1962. It’s a continuation of Fabian Haab’s Walter Alte Rauchwaren (used as the custom typeface for Kunsthalle Zürich’s 2015 redesign) and Omnigroup’s digitization made for the identity of Museum Brot und Kunst in Ulm, Germany.

Control (Commercial Type, 2023) takes the idea of the lettering manual literally, offering axes for weight, contrast, and apertures.