page_title: Akzidenz-Grotesk
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Akzidenz-Grotesk / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Specimen image of "Schattierte Grotesk", released by the Bauer Type Foundry of Stuttgart, Germany in 1896
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: Akzidenz-Grotesk's design descends from a school of general-purpose sans-serifs cut in the 19th century. Sans-serifs had become very popular in Germany by the late 19th century, which had a large number of small local type foundries offering different versions. 
  H. Berthold was founded in Berlin in 1858 initially to make machined brass printer's rule, moving into casting metal type particularly after 1893. Berthold publications from the 1920s onwards dated the design to 1898, when the firm registered two design patents on the family.
  Recent research by historians Eckehart Schumacher-Gebler, Indra Kupferschmid and Dan Reynolds has clarified many aspects of Akzidenz-Grotesk's history. The source of Akzidenz-Grotesk appears to be Berthold's 1897 purchase of the Bauer u. Cie Type Foundry of Stuttgart (not to be confused with the much better-known Bauer Type Foundry of Frankfurt); Kupferschmid concludes that the design appears to be related to a shadowed sans-serif (German: Schattierte Grotesk) sold by the Bauer Foundry and reviewed in a printing journal in 1896. Two design patents on Akzidenz-Grotesk were filed in April 1898, first on the 14th in Stuttgart by Bauer and then on the 28th in Berlin by Berthold, leading Reynolds to conclude that the design was executed in Stuttgart. Some early adverts that present Akzidenz-Grotesk are co-signed by both brands. Early references to Akzidenz-Grotesk at Berthold often use the alternative spelling 'Accidenz-Grotesk'; Reynolds suggests that the name may have been intended as a brand extension following on from an "Accidenz-Gothisch" blackletter face sold by the Bauer & Co. foundry. In general, Reynolds comments that the style of Schattierte Grotesk and Akzidenz-Grotesk "seem to me to be more of a synthesis of then-current ideas of sans serif letterform design, rather than copies of any specific products from other firms."
  The light weight of Akzidenz-Grotesk was for many years branded separately as 'Royal-Grotesk'. It apparently was cut by Berthold around 1902-3, when it was announced in a trade periodical as "a new, quite usable typeface" and advertised as having matching dimensions allowing it to be combined with the regular weight of Akzidenz-Grotesk. Reynolds and Florian Hardwig have documented the Schmalhalbfett weight (semi-bold, or medium, condensed) to be a family sold by many German type-foundries, which probably originated from a New York type foundry.
  Günter Gerhard Lange, Berthold's post-war artistic director, who was considered effectively the curator of the Akzidenz-Grotesk design, said in a 2003 interview Akzidenz-Grotesk came from the Ferdinand Theinhardt type foundry, and this claim has been widely copied elsewhere. This had been established by businessman and punchcutter Ferdinand Theinhardt, who was otherwise particularly famous for his scholarly endeavours in the field of hieroglyph and Syriac typefaces; he had sold the business in 1885. Kupferschmid and Reynolds speculate that he was misled by Akzidenz-Grotesk appearing in a Theinhardt foundry specimen after Berthold had taken the company over. Reynolds additionally points out that Theinhardt sold his foundry to Oskar Mammen and Robert and Emil Mosig in 1885, a decade before Akzidenz-Grotesk was released, and there is no evidence that he cut any further fonts for them after this year. As Lange commented, it was claimed in the post-war period that Royal-Grotesk's name referred to it being commissioned by the Prussian Academy of Sciences, but Kupferschmid was not able to find it used in its publications. 
  Many other grotesques in a similar style to Akzidenz-Grotesk were sold in Germany during this period. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, these increasingly began to be branded as larger families of multiple matched styles. Its competitors included the very popular Venus-Grotesk of the Bauer foundry of Frankfurt, very similar to Akzidenz-Grotesk but with high-waisted capitals, and Koralle by Schelter & Giesecke, which has a single-storey 'a'. (Monotype Grotesque 215 also is based on German typefaces of t
caption: The release of Akzidenz-Grotesk was not well-documented in contemporary printing literature. However, it seems to derive from this shadowed sans-serif (Schattierte Grotesk) from Bauer & Co. of Stuttgart, reviewed in 1896.[19]
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