The Original Grotesque

April 9, 2023 8:43 AM

A cooperation (German language) amongst the German Museum of Technology, the Erik Spiekermann Foundation, the Art Library of the State Museums and the State Library of Berlin has created a digitization of "the mother of all grotesques", the 1898 Kreuzberger H. Berthold AG published Akzidenz-Grotesk, or AG. OTF and TTF downloads available at GitHub.
posted by seanmpuckett (11 comments total)

That’s a surprisingly long history. Neat.
posted by clew at 10:44 AM on April 9, 2023

Prepress dork here, and I always loved how practical and clean this font is.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:13 AM on April 9, 2023

As a fan of Nine Inch Nails, I became aware of this typeface when I realized that the fan-made font for the "Broken" EP was slightly off, as was a set of official wallpapers put out in 2012. I could see that the curves and the thickness was juuuuust not right. After comparing it to a lot of typefaces that were no doubt descendants of it, I came across Akzidenz-Grotesk, and found it to be a perfect match.

Thanks for sharing!
posted by Leviathant at 11:33 AM on April 9, 2023

It's mildly amusing that "AG" is also the standard abbreviation for Aktiengesellschaft, which is a joint-stock company. So "Ich-AG" could also be translated as "Me, Inc."

I do like this font.
posted by Slothrup at 12:43 PM on April 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Mentioned in the documentary Helvetica. Streaming free on Kanopy.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:08 PM on April 9, 2023

AkzidenzGroteskBE-BoldEx - an utterly massive titling font - is my very favourite font to use, especially in places it doesn't belong.

This AG57 is quite lovely, and looks like it belongs everywhere
posted by scruss at 5:21 PM on April 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I love this font.

I was going to suggest using this font with caution for commercial use. The most recent owner of this storied font was extremely litigious and savvy about its likely improper use, according to incredibly dry and strict licensing guidelines. But I fact-checked myself, and it looks like that owner passed away in 2022 and his collection was purchased by Monotype. So that probably changes things once again. Perhaps this explains the timing of this release!
posted by inkytea at 5:38 AM on April 10, 2023

What happened to the serifs?
They fell off by Akzidenz.
posted by UN at 7:44 AM on April 10, 2023 [5 favorites]

"What happened to the serifs?
They fell off by Akzidenz."

You are why Turkish prisons were invented.
posted by Chitownfats at 11:04 AM on April 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

→ The most recent owner of this storied font was extremely litigious and savvy about its likely improper use

Re-cutting based on the 1898 out-of-copyright masters neatly avoids any ownership issue
posted by scruss at 2:17 AM on April 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

You are why Turkish prisons were invented.

That's just grotesk.
posted by UN at 2:48 AM on April 14, 2023 [1 favorite]