page_title: Akzidenz-Grotesk
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: Akzidenz-Grotesk / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of the first german edition of Programme Entwerfen, published 1963/1964 by Arthur Niggli in Switzerland.
context_page_description: Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin. Akzidenz indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tickets and forms, as opposed to fine printing, and "grotesque" was a standard name for sans-serif typefaces at the time.
  Originating during the late 19th century, Akzidenz-Grotesk belongs to a tradition of general-purpose, unadorned sans-serif types that had become dominant in German printing during the 19th century. Relatively little-known for a half-century after its introduction, it achieved iconic status in the post-war period as the preferred typeface of many Swiss graphic designers in what became called the 'International' or 'Swiss' design style which became popular across the Western world in the 1950s and 1960s. Its simple, neutral design has also influenced many later typefaces. It has sometimes been sold as Standard or Basic Commercial in English-speaking countries, and a variety of digital versions have been released by Berthold and other companies.
context_section_description: As described above, many influential graphic designers have used Akzidenz-Grotesk. In 2013, Pentagram partner Domenic Lippa rated Akzidenz-Grotesk as "probably the best typeface ever designed...it doesn’t overdominate when used, allowing the designer more freedom and versatility". Kris Sowersby has written that he found the semi-bold and bold weights most satisfying. Lange commented that the light weight "was my favourite font from the beginning. I used it on my first Berthold business card and my letterhead. It's a delicate, slender piece of engraving."
  A particular criticism of Akzidenz-Grotesk however, has often been that the regular weight has capitals that look unbalanced relative to the lower-case, as shown on the cover of Designing Programmes, which is problematic in extended text. Adrian Frutiger commented that Akzidenz-Grotesk forms "patches in print"; Reynolds that in a digital version "the capital letters are slightly too dark, and slightly too close to the lowercase letters that follow them in a word" and Wolfgang Homola that in Helvetica "the weight of the stems of the capitals and the lower case is better balanced".
caption: Karl Gerstner's book Designing Programmes. Gerstner, a fan of Akzidenz-Grotesk, advocated systematic methods in design.[93]
exif: {}