Going into the workshop, I had developed a few questions. In a future post, I plan to present a deeper comparison of the Reichsbahnschrift and halbfette Element (character by character). Halbfette Element was a proper typeface, manufactured for use in printing, so its design included optical compensations typically found in that medium. Horizontal strokes are two units thick as well. All vertical strokes are two units wide – or 2 cm – and that is true for both uppercase and lowercase letters. 6 and 7. The Reichsbahnschrift plans use a grid of 1 × 1 cm squares. That kind of “mistake” is not something found in the halbfette Element design, as can be seen above in figs. This causes the /u to actually seem a bit larger than the /o. For example, the top of the lowercase /u is flat, and its strokes reach just as high as the top point of the lowercase /o does. When the tops or bottoms of letters have points, those pointy parts fall on the same grid lines as the horizontal strokes, in the letterforms with flat tops or bottoms are flat. The Reichsbahnschrift has almost none of the optical compensations found in printing typefaces: it has no overshoots, for instance.

The lower image shows the character set of the same weight at 16 pt size, from page 35 of the same brochure. Other members of the family included mager (light), fett (heavy), and schmalfett (condensed heavy).įigures 6 and 7: The upper of the two images above reproduces six sizes of the bold weight from Max Bittrof’s Element, as printed on page 7 of the 1934 type specimen brochure that the Bauersche Gießerei produced for the typeface. Element has several variants, and halbfette Element was the bold weight. Max Bittrof (1890–1972) designed the Element typeface, which Bauersche Gießerei of Frankfurt am Main published in 1933, or about two years before the drafting of the plans for the Reichsbahnschrift. The Reichsbahnschrift was not a “typeface.” In terms of the commercial typefaces produced in Germany during the 1930s – the time when jackboot grotesks were en vogue – the Reichsbahnschrift seems most similar to halbfette Element. 2–4 as the Reichsbahnschrift from here on out. I will refer to as the lettering on the plans reproduced in figs. The Reichsbahnschrift and halbfette Element

The sign’s lettering uses the Reichsbahnschrift. It was produced in Kreuzberg at the Emaillierwerk Gottfried Dichanz, Berlin SO36 (the enamel workshop of Gottfried Dichanz). Private collection of Lars Krüger, Berlin.įigure 5: Enamel direction sign at the Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station. Sheet one measures 109 × 73 cm, sheet two 111 × 73 cm, and sheet three 93 × 55 cm. They are entitled ✽eutsche Schrift« (German script), and were drawn in May 1935 by a Mr. These drawings were produced by Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft in Berlin. I asked the students to compare the lettering in their photographs with the letters on these plans, to see how many Berlin S-Bahn blackletter signs used the model in the first place, and to figure out how true those signs that were using these models are to the plans.įigures 2–4: Scans of the three sheets displaying the plans for the Reichsbahnschrift. These were for a system of “German” lettering, presumably for use on train station signage. An unnamed lettering system from 1935Ībout a week before the course, I was able to borrow original plans made by the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft in 1935. After taking photographs, students created posters or booklets informed by what they had collected, and the materials I presented them with. I also brought in a number of other texts about the history of blackletter – particularly in National Socialist Germany – and several type specimens. Together, we read parts of two articles on so-called Schaftstiefelgrotesks, or “jackboot grotesk style” blackletter typefaces. Students searched for signage in Berlin S-Bahn stations that were made with blackletter. I had pitched one of the department’s professors on the idea of a class combining typographic history with a practical component. drew this as part of their three-poster series explaining the blackletter alphabets found on various signs in Berlin’s S-Bahn train network today.Įarlier this month, I lead a week-long workshop for third-semester communications design students at HTW Berlin. Figure 1: Diagram of the lowercase “e” construction from the so-called Reichsbahnschrift design.

German blackletter typeface