Preview: Lindau – to become a family

Andreas Stötzner
Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
in Type Design Critiques
I released Lindau about three years ago. A single-font product so far, I have been repeatedly asked about an Italic and more styles, since then.
Well, I take the pleasure to announce that ‘family members’ are in the making. The new package will comprise three weights and the corresponding Italics. Also tabular and oldstyle figures as well as an extended set of ligatures will be part of the new version.


Comments

  • AbrahamLee
    AbrahamLee Posts: 262
    Congrats, @Andreas Stötzner! That's very exciting!
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,440
    Are you looking for critique, or is this mostly an announcement?
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    Craig Eliason said:
    Are you looking for critique, or is this mostly an announcement?
    Feel free to deal with it the way you like. All sorts of comments welcome!
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,440
    Well for what's shown here, I would say:
    The purposeful spottiness that results from the tapers has some charm and distinctiveness. I would lend a little more weight to the baseline serifs in the bold. I also feel the /e/ crossbar in bold may be too heavy.
    Hard for me to see the top left serif on /y/ as anything besides a mistake in the two lighter weights, esp. the lightest. Somewhat related, that thin "drip" from the top terminal of /c/ feels too slight in those lighter weights.
    It'd be easier to judge in a mixed setting, but the spiky, narrow italic seems like an apt complement to the roman. 
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    Thank you for your careful detail observations, Craig. I’ll consider them definitely in the ongoing revision process. The top left part of the y is always a tricky one, its serif tends to collide with its neighbours while the space right beneath tends to be too large …
    The Italic is still in an initial state. The contrasting slenderness is definitely wanted; however, maybe it is just a little to slim by now.
  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 1,988
    edited July 2017
    I'm very fond of the light cut. The Bold and the Italic tend a bit into comical territory; I'm getting a subtle «Rocky Horror Picture Show» vibe from them. Perhaps this is intentional? If not, maybe the top-heavy weight distribution of the Bold could be toned down just a bit (strengthening the bottom serifs, as Craig suggests, seems like a good approach), and perhaps the ascenders in the Italic would look less «drippy» if they didn't undergo that change of direction shortly before the top?

    That /a is just gloriously shameless.  :grin:
  • AbrahamLee
    AbrahamLee Posts: 262
    What motivated you to create Lindau the way you did, Andreas? You can definitely see hints of Jenson and Centaur in it, but it maintains its own personality.

    By the way, your other typeface Andron is really lovely.
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,440
    Andreas Stötzner said:
    The Italic is still in an initial state. The contrasting slenderness is definitely wanted; however, maybe it is just a little to slim by now.
    Sketch out the bold master for the italic--that will help inform your decision on width.
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    The reference to Jenson and Centaur is right, one could also mention Trump Medieval (the other Trump!), Kapr’s Leipziger Antiqua or Deepdene. Rocky horror was not among my first aims … @AbrahamLee: Motivation? Just a feel for that sort of design, which one day bursted into realisation.
    @Christian Thalmann: The matter of vertical weight balance in the Bold is certainly worth revisiting. The ‘comical’ association may be evoked by looking at an isolated sample (?).

    I think in shorter texts and things like stationery Lindau works quite well.




  • Arne Freytag
    Arne Freytag Posts: 67
    Did you make the Logo/Signet of Silke Wagler as well? It's brilliant!
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    Arne Freytag said:
    Did you make the Logo/Signet of Silke Wagler as well? It's brilliant!
    yes. Thank you for the compliment! :)
  • Adam Twardoch
    Adam Twardoch Posts: 515
    edited July 2017


    Oldřich Menhart’s Manuscript (original shown below, the revival by Alex White shown above, another revival exists by Ralph M. Unger) and Figural (as revived by Michael Gills) also come to mind. Menhart and Kapr collaborated, and the contacts between the East German Typoart foundry and the Czechoslovakian Grafotechna foundry were common. Menhart’s trademark feature was the brush-induced top-heaviness, a feature that also appeared in some GDR typefaces from the 20th century, but was uncommon elsewhere. Lindau seems to be a cousin of the “Czech style” (see Veronika’s Burian dissertation on Menhart), and it’s not a bad thing at all :) 


  • Adam Twardoch
    Adam Twardoch Posts: 515
    And of course, as Andreas remarks, Albert Kapr’s Leipziger Antiqua is worth mentioning. It has been revived at least three times, by Tim Ahrens as Lapture and by Ralph M. Unger twice, as Leipziger Antiqua for URW++ and later as Lipsia Pro. I think Ahrens did a superb job in his Lapture revival, and his version has been used nicely on the cover of the Polish edition of Robert Bringhurst’s “The Elements of Typographic Style”, which I co-edited. 


  • Adam Twardoch
    Adam Twardoch Posts: 515
    Menhart’s books “Nauka o písmu” and “Tvorba typografického písma” are both superb. They showcase his various lettering styles, and even more of his “top-heavy” fashion can be see in his various lettering works, such as this 1946 poster for an exhibition of Belgian litographs. 


  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    Great, Adam.
    Menhart is definitely counting among the 20th century type heros, for my sense.
    However, I’m not sure about my inspirations in that case. Maybe some subconcious streams are at work here … ?
    That Belgian poster lettering is – a killer!!
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    edited July 2017
    Koch Antiqua is the first “tapered broad-nib” style that occurs to me, but Lindau is quite different.
  • Andreas Stötzner
    Andreas Stötzner Posts: 798
    yes – Koch Antiqua, of course! I remember having admired the lead types in the type composing workshop of the academy, back then …
  • Adam Twardoch
    Adam Twardoch Posts: 515
    Andreas Stötzner said:
    Great, Adam.
    Menhart is definitely counting among the 20th century type heros, for my sense.
    However, I’m not sure about my inspirations in that case. Maybe some subconcious streams are at work here … ?
    That Belgian poster lettering is – a killer!!

    I suppose it’s gotta be through the association between Grafotechna and Typoart. The East German designers and the Czechoslovakian designers were quite close in the 1950s and 1960s, and I think they influenced each other a lot. I’d even call it a "Central European style". Poland was largely absent from type design in the period. :) 
  • Dan Reynolds
    Dan Reynolds Posts: 176
    Absolutely! The collaboration of Czech and East German type designers in the 1950s and 1960s also seems to me like it is a continuation of pre-war practice. Menhart’s first typefaces were published in the early 1930s by the Bauer typefoundry in Frankfurt, who also published many of Schneidler’s typefaces (and Schneidler was Kapr’s teacher, etc.). I think it is a safe bet that Kapr was already familiar with Menhart’s work during his time as a student in Stuttgart. Perhaps Schneidler may have also shown him work designed by Preissig or other Czech designers. 

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