Form magazine, 2013 redesign

The Frankfurt-based form is a magazine about product and graphic design. It is not to be confused with the Swedish one. The German form was founded as early as in 1957 (initially named Internationale Revue) by industrial designers Wilhelm Wagenfeld and Jupp Ernst in cooperation with the museum curators Curt Schweicher and Willem Sandberg. Their first art director was Karl Oskar Blase. For many decades, the driving force behind form was Karlheinz Krug, a graduate of the famous HfG Ulm. Krug was succeeded as editor-in-chief by Petra Schmidt and, from 2006 to 2012, by Gerrit Terstiege. After publisher Birkhäuser filed for bankruptcy in 2012, Peter Wesner became the new owner and editor of form. The new editorial team is led by Stephan Ott. Learn more about the magazine’s history on the form website.

For the redesign that was rolled out with issue №250 in October 2013, Heimann und Schwantes use Theinhardt, Optimo’s revival/reconsideration of early German grotesks. It bears the name of Berlin type founder Ferdinand Theinhardt (1820–1909), who has been [edit: incorrectly] credited as the designer of Akzidenz-Grotesk. From Optimo:

François Rappo developed the Theinhardt family after researching the DNA of Grotesque drawings from the early 20th century to design an optically optimized contemporary font family organized in a wide range of weights.

Theinhardt is arguably the best available digital version of this classic. Not only is it technically up to date and comes in a wide range of weights. Unlike other options, it can also be licensed in single styles and for the web — plus the money goes to living type designers.