Französische Antiqua, scanned in the the request of a cool TypeMedia’ler
The Französische Antiqua typeface that Genzsch & Heyse and their E.J. Genzsch subsidiary sold was cast from matrices acquired from Paris. The French name for the original typeface is Série 16, produced at Laurent et Deberny. The original Série 16 punches were cut by Constant Aubert and Auguste Aubert. The site showing Berthe, ABYME’s revival of Série 16 mentions Jan Tschichold’s recommendation of the typeface in Die Neue Typografie:
“To my mind, looking at the modern romans, it is the unpretentious work of the anonymous type-designers that have best served the spirit of their age: Sorbonne, Nordische Antiqua, Französische Antiqua, and so on. These three typefaces and their derivatives are the best designs from the pre-war period. They are easily legible; they are also above all in a technical sense useful and free from personal idiosyncrasies – in the best sense of the word, uninteresting.”
Jan Tschichold, The New Typography: A Handbook for Modern Designers [1928] (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1998), p 76.
As an aside, I find it rather funny that none of the typefaces Tschichold named in that passage are anonymous works. We know the designers for each of them.
These Französische Antiqua pages are scanned from E.J. Genzsch’s 1902 catalog. In the 1920s, Genzsch & Heyse reissued their Französische Antiqua under the name Fridericus-Antiqua. Letterform Archive has two Fridericus-Antiqua brochures in its online archive, which you can see here and here.
Französische Antiqua, scanned in the the request of a cool TypeMedia’ler
The Französische Antiqua typeface that Genzsch & Heyse and their E.J. Genzsch subsidiary sold was cast from matrices acquired from Paris. The French name for the original typeface is Série 16, produced at Laurent et Deberny. The original Série 16 punches were cut by Constant Aubert and Auguste Aubert. The site showing Berthe, ABYME’s revival of Série 16 mentions Jan Tschichold’s recommendation of the typeface in Die Neue Typografie:
“To my mind, looking at the modern romans, it is the unpretentious work of the anonymous type-designers that have best served the spirit of their age: Sorbonne, Nordische Antiqua, Französische Antiqua, and so on. These three typefaces and their derivatives are the best designs from the pre-war period. They are easily legible; they are also above all in a technical sense useful and free from personal idiosyncrasies – in the best sense of the word, uninteresting.”
Jan Tschichold, The New Typography: A Handbook for Modern Designers [1928] (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1998), p 76.
As an aside, I find it rather funny that none of the typefaces Tschichold named in that passage are anonymous works. We know the designers for each of them.
These Französische Antiqua pages are scanned from E.J. Genzsch’s 1902 catalog. In the 1920s, Genzsch & Heyse reissued their Französische Antiqua under the name Fridericus-Antiqua. Letterform Archive has two Fridericus-Antiqua brochures in its online archive, which you can see here and here.