Job:03171 Title:Typography Referenced (Rockport)
Page: 192
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Job:03171 Title:Typography Referenced (Rockport)
Page: 192
192
Typography, Referenced
Blackletter
B
lackletter has existed
as a typographic style
for centuries.
It is a hybrid of both
Carolingian and Old English
writing, bearing resemblance
to ancient scribes’ handcrafted
writing from ninth-century Italy
and France, and as far east as
Germany. Johannes Gutenberg’s
invention of movable type in
the 1450s made blackletter
popular throughout Germany,
thanks mostly to Gutenberg’s
initial printing and distribution
of the Bible.
Peter Schöff er took over Guten-
berg’s production facility when
Schöff er’s father-in-law, Johann
Fust, foreclosed on Gutenberg,
and the two of them fi nished the
Bible production—leaving Guten-
berg penniless. From then on, a
long line of German type found-
ries and printers made names
for themselves and distributed
a wealth of printed goods set in
blackletter. Notable among them
were Conrad Sweynheym and
Arnold Pannartz, who established
a press in the Benedictine
monastery of Subiaco in 1465.
Over time, blackletter spread to
northern Europe.
Centuries later, in the s
(), Adolf Hitler and the Nazis
plastered Germany with pro-
paganda using blackletter
Fraktur as the de facto type
style. But by 1941, Hitler’s secre-
tary, Martin Bormann, decreed
that blackletter—specifi cally
Fraktur—was not to be used
because of its supposed Jewish
origins. Despite its use by the
Nazis and Bormann’s unusual
ruling, blackletter remains a ver-
satile typographic choice, and
has enjoyed modern-day reviv-
als by some of the industry’s
most celebrated type designers.
Today, it appears in news-
papers, on beer labels, and in
religious scriptures, connoting
a sense of reverence, reliability,
and timelessness. And in popular
culture, blackletter has graced
fl eshy canvases as tattoos and
has been used as wordmarks for
heavy metal and hip-hop bands.
Editor’s note: We do not recom-
mend using these blackletter
typefaces for long bodies of text.
TYPEFACES AND SPECIMENS
Blackletter
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