Typophile

Unknown Geometric Sans Serif printed in 1931

ltoikka

Hello! Can anyone help me with recognizing this typeface?
It's a geometric sans serif, looks lot like a mixture of Erbar, Kabel, Nobel and Futura. I included the scan of the page as an attachment.
The book where I found it is printed in 1931 by Lumax printing press in Utrecht, Netherlands.
The most noticeable feature which makes a difference to other similar geometric sans serifs is the lowercase w which has a strange crossing. Lowercase a looks a lot like Erbar but it's a bit more condensed. Other letters are really round and geometric.

I have a guess that the typeface might be german but i'm not sure.

Any knowledge about the foundry or other sources to look at would be much appreciated.

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Nick Curtis

It's quite similar to period cuts of Erbar Grotesk, but the w isn't right...

Chris Lozos

Not a variation on Kabel?

Aarhaus

Hi,

quite close to Neuzeit Grotesk by Wilhelm Pischner, 1928. The w is different.

http://www.linotype.com/de/308/dinneuzeitgrotesk-schriftfamilie.html?sub...

ltoikka

Hmm... Neuzeit Grotesk is maybe so far the closest guess. There are still more details that don't quite match, like the curved lowercase l in the linotype version. On the other hand, if you look at other interpretations on the same subject, like Bitstream's Geometric 706, you can find a straight l. Maybe there was originally a bunch of alternative characters.

Has someone seen the original specimen of Neuzeit Grotesk? Or the drawings of Wilhelm Pischner?

Mark Simonson

Looks like it's probably an early version of Neuzeit Grotesk. Here's a specimen I found from the DVD-ROM (German volume) that Spatium Magazine issued a year or two ago:

Bert Vanderveen

At that time Foundries (and in that respect not a lot has changed) copied popular styles to keep a hold on their home market — your sample suggest Dutch ones.

Your best shot for a proper identification is to look at specimens of Amsterdamsche Lettergieterij (my first bet) or Enschedé.

ltoikka

Thanks so much for your help, everyone!
I'm pretty sure Mark got it right, even though the picture is quite small.

If I look at the other characters all the details seem to match. Look at uppercase J which really stands out. Also the figures seem similar. My print is just a bit darker.



If you have some ideas where I could find specimens of Neuzeit Grotesk, especially that version, would be awesome. Was there more material in the Spatium DVD, Mark?

Mark Simonson

That was all I found on the DVD. It's a compilation of someone's collection, from what I gather (I don't understand much German), and some of it's a bit sketchy. The card in that scan says it's from Stempel, 1930. There are other specimens of Neuzeit Grotesk, but not with that "w". Here's a larger image:

My guess would be that the "w" was changed early on to the form that you see in current versions.

Captured from web.archive.org on 15 Oct 2013. view this capture