Akzidenz-Grotesk
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| Category | Sans-serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Grotesque sans-serif |
| Foundry | H. Berthold AG |
Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif or grotesque typeface originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin.Akzidenz means a 'commercial' typeface for trade use in publicity materials, advertising, tickets and forms, as opposed to typefaces intended for decorative or book use.
Dating to the late nineteenth century, Akzidenz-Grotesk belongs to a tradition of general-purpose, unadorned sans serif types that had become popular during the nineteenth century, at first in Britain and later in Germany, becoming one of the most popular examples of this style. Its simple, unadorned design has influenced many later faces and became commonly used in the International or 'Swiss' design style by the 1950s and 1960s. It has sometimes been sold as Standard or Basic Commercial in the USA.
Like most sans-serifs Akzidenz-Grotesk is 'monoline' in structure, with all strokes of the letter of quite similar width, giving a sense of simplicity and an absence of adornment and flourishes seen in many more decorative sans-serifs of the late nineteenth century influenced by the Art Nouveau style. Modern type designer Martin Majoor has described the general design of Akzidenz-Grotesk and its ancestors as similar in letterforms to Didone serif fonts such as Didot and Walbaum, most visibly in the folded-up apertures of letters such as ‘a’ and ‘c’.
Akzidenz-Grotesk's metal type family shows considerable inconsistencies, and has been reported to include fonts made by a range of foundries. Some have been claimed to originate from the Berlin foundry Ferdinand Theinhardt Schriftgiesserei and have been designed by Ferdinand Theinhardt, although Professor Indra Kupferschmid, who has researched the early use of sans-serifs in Germany, reports that this does not fully explain the family's history: "there must have been an Accidenz-Grotesk at Berthold before the acquisition of Theinhardt’s foundry in 1908." Many other grotesques in a similar style were available in German by the early twentieth century, for example Grotesk and Koralle by Schelter & Giesecke and Venus-Grotesk of the Bauer foundry; Monotype Grotesque also is based on German typefaces of this period.
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