DIN 1451
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| Category | Sans-serif |
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| Foundry | FontFont, Linotype GmbH |
DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications.
It was defined by the German standards body DIN - Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Institute for Standardization) in the standard sheet DIN 1451-Schriften (typefaces) in 1931.
Originally designed for industrial uses, the first DIN-type fonts were a simplified design that could be applied with limited technical difficulty. Due to the design's legibility and uncomplicated, unadorned design, it has become popular for general purpose use in signage and display adaptations. Many adaptations and expansions of the original design have been released digitally.
The DIN 1451 typeface family includes both a medium (Mittelschrift) and a condensed (Engschrift) version; an older extended version (Breitschrift) is no longer used since the early 1980s, but may still be encountered on older road signs in Germany. DIN 1451 is the typeface used on road signage in Germany and a number of other countries. It was also used on German car number plates from 1956, until replaced there in January 1995 by FE-Schrift, a typeface especially designed to make the plates more tamper-proof and to optimize automatic character recognition. The typeface has gained popularity due to its wide exposure through its release as a PostScript typeface in 1990. Since then it is also used by non-governmental organisations and businesses. For graphic design and desktop publishing, several type foundries offer redesigned and extended versions of this typeface.
In 1931 the DIN institute published DIN 1451. It contained several standard typefaces for mechanically engraved lettering, hand-lettering, lettering stencils and printing types. These were to be used in the areas of signage, traffic signs, wayfinding, lettering on technical drawings and technical documentation.
The origins of DIN 1451 Engschrift (Condensed) for hand lettering go back to 1905, when the Königlich Preußische Eisenbahn-Verwaltung (Royal Prussian Railway Administration) standardized the lettering to be used on all its rolling stock in a master drawing (pattern drawing) known as Musterzeichnung IV 44. In 1915 the then Prussian-Hessian Railways decided that all lettering on railway platforms and stations had to be executed according to the 1905 master drawing as well. As a by-product of the merger of all German railway companies into Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1920, the Prussian railway typeface had already become a national de facto standard before the DIN Committee of Typefaces took up its work for DIN 1451 a few years later. The DIN Committee of Typefaces was headed by the Siemens engineer Ludwig Goller (1884–1964), who also led the central standardization office at Siemens & Halske in Berlin between 1920 and 1945. ]
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