Wilh. Schurath invoice, 1938
In 1881, brothers Hermann, Gustav, and Wilhelm Schurath opened a paper shop with a bag-making workshop in Leipzig. They added a paper mill in their home town of Brandis, Saxony, in 1883. Fifty-five years later, in 1938, Wilhelm Schurath G.m.b.H. issued this invoice for 2,260 glassine window envelopes with gummed flaps, plus another fifty of second quality.
The design of the invoice features four different styles from a large sans-serif family that went under various names. The company name and location are shown in the bold extended Edel-Grotesk fett a.k.a. Aurora V. All other preprinted text (disregarding the typewritten additions) is set in three weights from the regular-wide Neue moderne Grotesk a.k.a. Aurora I–IV.
Another invoice in SLUB’s Saxonia collection shows that the same basic design was used already in 1936. On that version, parts of the header are set in two weights of Futura, though, resulting in a less harmonious pairing.
According to Frank Schimpke, the company continued to operate as Wilhelm Schurath KG until 1970, when it was nationalized and renamed VEB Verpackungsmittelwerk Brandis.
