Unger Fraktur
A Fraktur as an alternative to AntiquaDuring the enlightenment and the French Revolution, many European writers and publishers began to push for a clear, simple Fraktur. This impulse gave rise to the development of a “new kind of German letters” by the well-known printer and publisher Johann Friedrich Unger and his employee Johann Christian Gubitz.
Universal language – a utopia?
Dreams of the redundancy of translation The universal language was an idea that had already occurred to the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the 17th century – as a system of characters with which objects and their relations, laws, etc. can be communicated. Against the backdrop of the varied international interdependences of today, the search for an international language is on once again and is receiving new impulses through the use of universally understandable forms, pictograms and symbols.
Venezia
Typewriter script in italic graceVenezia is one of three designs that the commercial artist, illustrator and typographer Axel Bertram developed from 1976-1979 for the Erika travel typewriter from the Schreibmaschinenwerk Dresden. The typewriter typeface is based on the classical italic typefaces of the Italian Renaissance, in particular the fonts created by Francesco Griffo around 1500 for the Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius.
Wages
The A-Z of industrialisationWages are the compensation paid for a regularly performed work activity. In a production site (Factory) organised with the division of labour, those performing work activities are paid di_fferent wage amounts depending on their profession, the work performed, age and sex. A difference is made between a time wage, which depends on the number of hours worked, and piece or task wages, which depend on performance.
Weiß Rundgotisch
A return to Gothic formsThe emergence of Gothic art gave rise to the Gothic script and after about 1450 the rotunda or round Gothic typeface, both of which are blackletter typefaces. A defining characteristic of the typeface is the connection of the Gothic letter form with rounded, unbroken bowls on the lowercase letters.
When literature offends
The fight against supposedly trashy and dirty writings“The law is against us. They say Buffalo Bill but mean the truth.” With these words, Bertolt Brecht criticised the Law to Protect Youth from Trashy and Dirty Writings, which was passed in 1926.
Wiring up the world
The origins of the intercontinental communication networkThe largest ship of its day for an epic task: At 211m in length and with six masts, the Great Eastern was an iron sailing steam ship with a combination of paddle wheel, helical wheel and sail propulsion. It was launched in 1857 and carried 4,000 passengers.
Word and hand
Writing: a complex processRecording text or images has mostly been a manual process. Whether embossing, scribing, applying colour directly or using stencils - the human hand is indispensable as a gripping tool.
Writing beyond script
The poetry of the punch cardIn the age of technical media, which require more than just paper and a pencil, many recording procedures have nothing to do with traditional methods. Procedures for recording sound, data and images, for example, have given rise to a number of different information carriers.
Writing systems of the world
Communicating and rememberingCompared with language, writing developed much later, initially as an independent character system that served the purposes of communication and especially of recording: early aids such as tally-sticks, knots and string and non-verbal gestures led to the development of representational characters in which the intended meaning was first depicted in actual pictures and then with abstract symbols.
