Mensch wir werfen raus! board game
Not type, but lettering that’s derived from a typeface: The name of this board game is a great example of a font in indirect use. Especially the word “Mensch” is clearly modeled after Reporter, complete with its bolt-like s and the rugged terminals. The script typeface emulating strokes made with a dry brush was designed by Carlos Winkow and first cast in the late 1930s by the Norddeutsche Schriftgießerei foundry. Linotype has a digitization with simplified details that lacks the many ligatures of the metal (or wood) original. For a digital font that comes somewhat close to “wir werfen raus”, see Riccardo De Franceschi’s Vampiro.
Mensch wir werfen raus! (“Man, we’re throwing [you] out!”) is a copy of the famous Mensch ärgere Dich nicht (“Man, Don’t Get Angry”) introduced in 1914. It was made around 1960 in East Germany.
The Reporter typeface with its digraph (ei, en), trigraph (sch), and whole-syllable (heit) ligatures, as shown in a specimen by the Johannes Wagner foundry.
Flipside with the layout for six players. The title at the center of the board is shown in a different lettering style, here with a long s (ſ) in “Mensch”.
The original Mensch ärgere Dich nicht (right), compared to the GDR copy Mensch wir werfen raus! (left).
The manual is set in Fundamental-Grotesk. Like Reporter, it was first issued in the late 1930s by one of the Wagner foundries, in this case Ludwig Wagner. Arno Drescher’s sans serif was continued by the nationalized Typoart after World War II.
A different (later?) edition shortened the name to Wir werfen raus.
