H. Berthold AG
| Aktiengesellschaft | |
| Industry | Type foundry |
| Founded | 1858 |
| Founder | Hermann Berthold |
| Defunct | 1993 |
| Headquarters | Berlin, Germany |
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Key people
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Hermann Berthold, Günter Gerhard Lange |
H. Berthold AG was one of the largest and most successful type foundries in the world for most of the modern typographic era, making the transition from foundry type to cold type successfully and only coming to dissolution in the digital type era.
Established in 1858 by Hermann Berthold and based in Berlin, the company played a key role in the introduction of major new typefaces and was a successful player in the development of typesetting machines. The production premises were on Wilhelmstrasse No. 1 until 1868, and then on Mehringdamm 43. In 1979 the factory moved to another location between Teltow Canal and Wiesenweg in Lichterfelde.
The H. Berthold foundry's most celebrated family of typefaces is arguably Akzidenz-Grotesk (released 1896), an early sans-serif which prefigured by half a century the release of enormously popular neo-grotesque faces such as Helvetica. In 1950, type designer Günter Gerhard Lange embarked upon a long affiliation with the company, for which he designed various original typefaces, including Concorde and Imago, and oversaw the foundry's revivals of classic faces such as Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, and Bodoni.
As a typefounder, Berthold had no background in producing cold type machinery until the introduction of the Diatype in 1958.
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Wikipedia