akzidenz

accidenz
grotesk
akzidenz
grotesk
Pedro da Gama
2009
index
07 intro
11 history
21 identifying characteristics
25 similarities to other typefaces
31 its purpose
35 bibliografia
intro
intro

Akzidenz-Grotesk is a realist sans-serif typeface originally

released by the H. Berthold AG type foundry in 1896 under the
title Accidenz-Grotesk.
It was the first sans serif typeface to be widely used and
influenced many later neo-grotesque typefaces. Max Miedinger’s
Helvetica, Adrian Frutiger’s Univers and Bauer and Baum’s
Folio are examples of it.

Akzidenz Grotesk is well-known for the logic of its systematic

family, and it is tempting to equate this modernist idea with the
sans genre - however, almost no-one used sans-serif faces
for text in 1900.

9
history
 Royal Grotesk
specimen
book from
Haag Drugulin,
Leipzig -
edition 1963.

Berthold’s
Akzidenz-
Grotesk
probe no.
429 - pro-
bably 1954.

12
history

Akzidenz Grotesk was released by Berthold in Berlin in 1898,

according to their own literature. It was obviously based on faces
already offered by other foundries, some of which were later taken
over by Berthold. One of the contemporaries of AG was
Royal Grotesk.
In 1880, the german typographer and hieroglyphic expert
Ferdinand Theinhardt develops a sans-serif typeface under the
name of Royal Grotesk for the Prussian Academy of Sciences
publishers. Eighteen years later Hermann Berthold takes over
Theinhard’s foundry, making the Royal Grotesk typeface part of
Akzidenz Grotesk family.
In Berthold’s specimen booklet no. 429, which was most likely
released in 1954, Akzidenz Grotesk Mager (light) was still re-
ferred to as Royal Grotesk, in brackets.
They kept adding weights, some of them from other faces,
acquired from other foundries. Some say the early Akzidenz
Grotesk Halbfett (medium) was also from Theinhard, but there
are no certainties about this, as it was not documented.

13
 Berthold’s
Akzidenz-
Grotesk
probe
no. 473

14
history

Every foundry had a version of that type of face, more often than
not available in a few sizes only.
The original series remained quite divers, individual weights
showing not much resemblance but in name. It was mainly a mar-
keting and naming success.
The versions of Akzidenz Grotesk that we use on computers
nowadays descend from the recuts made in the late 50s under the
direction of Günter Gerhard Lange, who was their (freelance)
artistic director at the time. The idea was to get a uniformity be-
tween the different weights of this family, since they all come from
different sources.

GG Lange always claimed that Berthold had taken some

Akzidenz Grotesk weights and sizes from Popplbaum in Vienna,
and that is supposed to account for the release date of 1896 or
1898. Popplbaum was not bought by Berthold until 1926.
Berthold did take different fonts from all the foundries they
bought (and obviously also made deal without buying a foundry)

15
 Light 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
Light Italic 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Extended 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over

Ext. Italic 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over

Regular 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
Italic 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Condensed 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
Cond. Italic 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Medium 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
Medium Italic 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy

Bold 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
Bold Italic 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the

Extra 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
Extra Italic 9pt The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

16
history

and rename them until they got a family together which still
showed the original influences, sometimes even from size to size.
The deals between foundries (by 1924 Berthold had bought
17 foundries in Prague, Riga, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Moscow and St.
Petersburg) have never been fully researched, and neither has the
complete history of Akzidenz Grotesk been written yet.

Style variations such as AG Extra (1958), AG Extra Bold (1966),

AG Super (1968), AG Super Italic and AG Extra Bold Italic
(both 2001) were also designed under the supervision of GG
Lange.

In May 2006, Berthold released Akzidenz Grotesk in OpenType

format, under the name Akzidenz Grotesk Pro, which offers
extend language support for Central European, Baltic and Turkish
as well as Welsh, archaic Danish and Esperanto and is available in
CFF PostScript OpenType.

17
 Akzidenz
Grotesk Next
Pro example
from
Berthold’s
website.

18
history

The foundry also released Akzidenz Grotesk Standard, which

includes glyphs of Western European character set, in both
PostScript and TrueType flavored OpenType.

In December of the same year, Berthold announced the release

of Akzidenz Grotesk Next. Designed by Bernd Moellenstaedt
and Dieter Hofrichter, was conceived as a single family that
uses the principal shape characteristics of the original Akzidenz
Grotesk, which now appear throughout all the weights.
The x-height has been readjusted as well as the weights to ob-
tain a more consistent design throughout the family from extralight
to black. Akzidenz-Grotesk Next is available in PostScript and
TrueType flavors of OpenType with over 500 glyphs and extended
language support for Central European, Baltic and Turkish as well
as Welsh, archaic Danish and Esperanto.

19
identifying characteristics
QJG
j i g
MR a
 identifying characteristics

Let’s go through some of the most singular features of this type-

face (as of 1898), which make this font what it is for us nowadays.

• tail of uppercase Q does not cross the circle

• uppercase J does not descend below baseline
• right-angle bar and spur at the base of uppercase G
• middle of uppercase M descends to baseline
• single-story lowercase g (no lower ball)
• square dots on lowercase i and j
• double-story lowercase a
• lowercase i is just a straight line
• uppercase R has a straight leg

23
similarities to other typefaces
 e e e
Akzidenz
Grotesk,
Helvetica
and Univers
48pt.

26
 similarities to other typefaces

Akzidenz Grotesk is sometimes at first glance mistaken for the

Helvetica or Univers typefaces. Can you easily spot Akzidenz?

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

The similarities of Helvetica, Univers and Akzidenz Grotesk are

apparent, but there are some subtle differences between these
typefaces. Let’s see:

• lowercase a, e, c and s and uppercase C, G and S have

diagonal (or open) terminals
• lowercase a has different shapes in all of the typefaces
• uppercase J has a smaller tail
• uppercase Q tail doesn’t cut through the letter
• uppercase G base has different spurs
• uppercase R has a straight leg

27
Akzidenz and Helvetica

hamburgerfonts hamburgerfonts

Akzidenz and Univers

hamburgerfonts hamburgerfonts

28
similarities to other typefaces

Aside from the subtle differences in these individual letters,

Miedinger’s primary change to Akzidenz Grotesk is Helvetica’s
higher x-height, the distance from the baseline to the height of
the lowercase letter x. The general effect is that Helvetica
appears more oblong while Akzidenz Grotesk maintains circular
counters and bowls.
Though Univers also has a bigger x-height than Akzidenz
Grotesk, the main difference is the general weight of the typeface.
though letters like a, e, b, o and s are thinner, other like m, g, f, x
and y are much wider and the left and right spaces before kerning
are also wider, which produces wider text.
Both Helvetica and Univers are more regular and have a greater
consistency of stroke weight.

Some new weights, condensed and extended widths were

released under the title Standard.

29
its purpose
32
its purpose

Very little is known about Akzidenz’s purpose. What did the

typographers had in mind when they made this typeface and what
was it made for. Every typeface has a purpose; it may be head-
lines, advertisement, books, magazines, a specific logo, etc.
But in this case, there are no certainties about its genesis. What
we do know is that Akzidenz’s direct percursor, Royal Grotesk
(Ferdinand Theinhardt, 1880) was conceived for a scientific pub-
lication, so one may assume Berthold had the same idea in mind
when it came to the making of this typeface.

One thing is for sure, like all sans serifs from that time, Akzidenz
Grotesk was meant to be used as a display face (the German
word Akzidenzschrift means display face or jobbing type), but
because it also included a good lowercase and different weights it
was used more and more as a text face.

33
bibliography
 books

36
bibliography

Manual de tipografía, John Kane, Editorial Gustavo Gili, SL,

Barcelona, 2005

The Elements of Typographic Style, version 3.0, Robert

Bringhurst, Hartley & Marks Publishers, Vancouver, 2004

Veintidós consejos sobre tipografía / Ventidós cosas que

nunca debes hacer con las letras, Enric Jardí, Actar,
Barcelona, 2007

37
 web pages

38
bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akzidenz_Grotesk
http://www.bertholdtypes.com
http://www.myfonts.com
http://typophile.com/node/4567
http://typophile.com/node/19482
http://typophile.com/node/17655
http://typophile.com/node/17643
http://www.xabel.com/?p=50
http://www.fonts.com
http://www.rightreading.com/typehead/akzidenz_grotesque.htm

and
Martin Majoor’s Inclined to be dull PDF

39
the end
accidenz
akzidenz
grotesk