For over half a century, Emil Rudolf Weiß ranked as the most important book artist in Germany. His work not only involved every aspect of the book design process – typesetting, typeface, illustration, cover and dust jacket design – but he also regularly published his own poetic texts, thereby producing complete works of art.

Born in 1875 in Baden, Weiß studied at the Karlsruhe and Stuttgart art academies, in addition to the Académie Julian in Paris, where the famous painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was among his fellow students. In 1894 Weiß sent a handwritten poem to the literature magazine Pan, whose publisher was so impressed by the work that he hired Weiss to create a regular page showcasing his lettering prowess. From 1902 onwards, Weiß created a series of famous fonts for the Bauer type foundry, including Weiß Fraktur (1909), Weiß Antiqua (1928) and Weiß Rundgotisch (1937). In 1910 he took on a professorship at the academy of the State Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Applied Arts) in Berlin but was sent into early retirement by the Nazi regime in 1933 when a number of his paintings were classified as degenerate art.