About this Event
Despite being virtually unknown today, the blackletter typefaces cast between the 15th and 20th centuries exhibited a tremendous variety in letterform design. What had initially been a handful of styles common throughout the European territories home to the Latin script became increasingly associated with German speakers, first because of Lutheran Protestantism and later because of increasing nationalism and the formation of nation-states. Aside from the “Old English” variety most commonly used in England and by the British diaspora, the letterforms in many historic blackletter seem virtually indecipherable at first. That is especially true for the uppercase letters in the predominant typographic variants, Schwaber and Fraktur. This hour-long primer for typical blackletter styles—especially those that unfolded in German-speaking Europe, where there was the most experimentation—will make those letterforms feel more familiar and show which traditions might be most ripe for revival in the 21st century.
Dan Reynolds is an American designer working in Germany. He teaches typography in the book studies program at the Johannes Gutenberg University and researches the history of Germany’s type foundries. Dan studied graphic design in the US and Germany before attending the MA Typeface Design course at the University of Reading. After working at Linotype during the noughties, he began copyrighting for about a dozen other foundries. Since 2021, he has also worked as the editor of Fontstand News. Since 2020, Dan has collaborated with the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin to help bring attention to its typographic collections, especially the material remains of H. Berthold AG and the typefaces cut at the German Reichsdruckerei. His research has been published by Cooperativa Anonima Servizi Tipografici, Klim Type Foundry, the Max Planck Institute, Poem, and the Steidl Verlag.
Event Venue
Online
USD 0.00
