WF Schelter Antiqua, another resurrected Art Nouveau type

Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.)

My upcoming Art Nouveau design kit needed a representative body type. I chose Schelter Antiqua because it manages to be legible, stately and quite quirky at the same time. I feel it'll be a good fit with the other typefaces in the kit. S&G originally produced six styles in various styles. For now, I've only done one cut in a text size. If it resonates, I may do the remaining cuts in a "pro" version at some point. The kit should be ready by the end of October. The combination border I used here, originally by Ludwig Mayer, will be part of the kit as well. 



  

Marc Oxborrow

Love it! Feels like a bridge between ornate Art Nouveau type and more widely used faces like Souvenir. 

Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.)

I'm pretty sure ITC Souvenir evolved from this typeface. It's very similar, but without the "Fraktur-y" elements.

Christian Thalmann

Charming overall!

The capital Eszett is a bit too jagged for my taste... I suspect it would look much better with the bottom right arc moved to the right a bit as a whole (making the connection to the roof steeper in the process).

Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.)

It does lack bottom, doesn't it? That's how it is in the original, but I'm thinking I may take some artistic license and fill it out a little.  

Florian Hardwig

Good choice, Oliver! Schelter-Antiqua was an important, influential, and widely used typeface. It deserves a decent digitization.

Let me know if you need a scan of a glyph set for the italic Schelter-Kursiv.

I'm pretty sure ITC Souvenir evolved from this typeface.

Indirectly, yes: ITC Souvenir is an evolution and expansion of Souvenir Graphic, drawn by Ed Benguiat for Photo-Lettering, Inc. In turn, Souvenir Graphic was a pretty faithful revival of Souvenir, designed by Morris F. Benton in 1914 and released by ATF in 1920. But yes, it looks like Benton drew inspiration from Schelter-Antiqua. See also an archived discussion on Typophile from 2005 and especially a visual comparison of Schelter-Antiqua and ITC Souvenir made by Peter Bain.

Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.)

@Florian Hardwig Thank you for the additional information on Souvenir, I didn't know the particulars. And yes, I would LOVE a scan of Schelter-Kursiv, pretty please!

Craig Eliason

Hard to tell because much of the specimen text is justified, but to me the wordspace looks a bit too wide. 

Peter Bain

Just a scan, since the italic came up in discussion.

Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.)

Thanks Peter! I will do the italic, though it won't be ready by the time my kit launches. I may also do the other cuts, eventually.

Thomas Phinney

I really like this a lot. Nice!

Christian Thalmann

I find the Italics quite a bit less convincing than the uprights. I hope you'll take some creative license to harmonize them a bit...

(Though the cramped c_h and c_k ligatures might be the main culprits.)

Claudio Piccinini

Marc Oxborrow said:

Love it! Feels like a bridge between ornate Art Nouveau type and more widely used faces like Souvenir. 

As Florian already explained Souvenir (rdesigned by Benton in 1914) stemmed from the same context. Benguiat redesigned and expanded it in a crafty way, in the late 1960s-early 1970s, with the period flavor, as these forms became fashionable, but all was already there – although it became more successful in that subsequent period.