Type reface

Originally written for EKA GD MA thesis Re- in 2023

All typefaces are sets of symbols depicting alphabets. An alphabet is formed over time through communication and adapting to common ways of understanding as well as to available technologies and means of production. All typefaces depicting alphabets are remakes of a common understanding of what letters are or look like.

There is a vast difference between tools that type designers used in the past – matrices, punchcutting, handicrafts, materiality – and what they use today – software that makes files for computers.

“Both new and old media are invoking the twin logics of immediacy and hypermediacy in their efforts to remake themselves and each other,”

write Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin in their book Remediation: Understanding New Media. This can be compared to how the production of type was mediated into the new age in the end of the 20th century. They explain further:

“We will argue that these new media are doing exactly what their predecessors have done: presenting themselves as refashioned and improved versions of other media. Digital visual media can best be understood through the ways in which they honor, rival and revise linear-perspective painting, photography, film, television, and print. No medium today, and certainly no single media event, seems to do its cultural work in isolation from other media, any more than it works in isolation from other social and economic forces. What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of new media.”

Regardless of how type is crafted, the outcome is the same in terms of symbols bearing phonetic value and a particular shape. Because of the similarities of the outcome, there are intrinsically aspects to letters that make them legible or functional. For younger practitioners, the drawing or construction of fonts is much quicker than type making historically has been. Modern technology unlocks creativity; it is no longer required to think critically about cost-effectiveness or wide applicability, not to mention restrictions regarding type size or physical access. Type designers now don’t always base their new work on Roman square capitals or think about Trajan’s column every time they start a new typeface. That being said, not all typefaces should condemn the past and rid themselves of features that resemble Garamond, Times and Helvetica. The point is rather to emphasize that there is always something to learn about histories about what has failed and what has succeeded. This applies to remaking. Knowing what connotations an object bears or a clear goal of what to expand upon helps in the legitimization of the remade object’s purpose.

Nelson Goodman writes in his book Languages of Art that artworks such as paintings, sculptures, musical sonatas, dance pieces, typefaces are all made of symbols, which possess different functions and bear different relations with the worlds they refer to. Hence, artworks require interpretation, and interpreting them amounts to understanding what they refer to, in which way, and within which systems of rules.

In the late 19th century, type foundries competed with each other and carefully monitored the output of others. For example, Theophile Baudoire and Gustav F. Schröder designed the typeface Romana in 1860. The typeface was first cast in Haas Type Foundry in Switzerland before 1900. When referring to the entry for Romana on the website Fonts in Use, the description begins with:

“This entry is used for Romana as sold by Haas [Type Foundry], and versions thereof. It also serves as a generic container for unidentified versions from this genre.”

It is interesting to note that the word “genre” is used to categorize all the different versions (or remakes) of Romana under one umbrella. There are, in fact, many similar lookalikes. When trying to establish a linear timeline of the Romana genre, it’s difficult already in the very beginning, because it’s not quite clear as to which typeface was made first.

Ivar Sakk, Estonian graphic designer and Estonian Academy of Arts professor, wrote for Studies for Art and Architecture magazine in 2012:

“In the communist period, Soviet consumer goods were limited both in number and in regards to aesthetic options to choose from. It was the same with typefaces for books, posters, newspapers, etc. There were only few of them: the same recognizable characters appeared on grayish cinema tickets and from art books to magazines for children.”

For his PhD in Graphic Design, Ivar Sakk wrote and designed the book Aa to Zz, an overview of the history of typography in the world with additional focused glimpses into Estonia both in the Soviet period and in reindependence. I wrote an email to Ivar asking about the serif typeface Literaturnaya, one of the few Soviet typefaces mentioned in the quote above. Literaturnaya was designed by Anatoliy Shchukin between 1901–1937. Sakk has written about Romana:

“A typeface that was in many German type workshops precisely in the beginning of the 20th century. It reached the Baltic countries under the name Lateinisch during the Tsardom period of Russia through type workshop Berthold, which operated in St. Petersburg, and according to [the typeface Lateinisch] Russians drew their most widespread communism-era text typeface Latinskaya (later Literaturnaya) in 1936, which became popular even in Estonia with book pages printed here in the 1950s until the 1980s. Characteristics of the typeface are the sudden cuts of the upper serifs and the fang-shaped foot of the letter R.”

Literaturnaya is a remake of Lateinisch, which was first cast by Berthold Type Foundry in 1899. Lateinisch also bears a striking resemblance to Romana, which was made and first cast around the same time. With Romana and Lateinisch being first designed and cast chronologically so close to each other, it is hard to determine who came first in the Romana genre. Lateinisch has not been dated earlier than 1899 and Romana, many sources claim, was designed in 1860. The person credited for the initial style of Lateinisch, Peter Schnorr, was born in 1862; based on this it can be deduced that Romana came first. Ivar Sakk added that there were plenty of other versions of Romana in the late 19th century such as Elzevir (J. H. Rust & Co, 1880, Vienna) and Antiqua (Schelter & Giesecke, 1906) and that many of these versions hearkened back to antiquity and ancient Rome. Literaturnaya’s principle, however, was essentially modifying Lateinisch formally and adding to it the Cyrillic alphabet.

“The Soviet Union was on the winner’s side and removed several of Germany’s metal and machine enterprises. Those started a new life in Soviet cities. For example, the Opel car factory’s production was continued in Moscow, and the Opel Kadett was renamed the Moskvitsch.”

The case of creating a new image for the Soviet Union by having the empire’s own versions was also apparent in the world of type design. Another of the few Soviet typefaces, “the geometric sans serif typeface that popped up everywhere was Zhurnalnaya Roublennaya, as gray and dull as everyday communist life”, which was a remake of German type designer Jakob Erbar’s geometric sans serif Erbar-Grotesk. The typeface was used in plenty of magazines and books, which made it very recognizable for Estonians, who relate the look of the letters to the Soviet period.

“The lack of a properly made digital version of Zhurnalnaya Roublennaya was noticeable in 2007, when the artist Marko Mäetamm exhibited his works at the Venice Biennale. Estonian designer Indrek Sirkel, who was designing the artist’s catalog, was searching for the visual expression of Mäetamm’s bitter, personal, and childhood-reflecting art.”

This led to Zhurnalnaya Roublennaya being remade through the collaboration of Estonian and Swiss designers into GT Eesti published by Grilli Type.

“The revival of Zhurnalnaya Roublennaya is logical and the zeitgeist welcomes the rebirth of this visual phenomenon. It is ironic that a German-prototyped, Russian-manufactured typeface would reappear after being picked up by Swiss designers — who renamed it Eesti,”

Ivar Sakk concluded the journey of the geometric sans serif.

GT Eesti is a remake of Zhurnalnaya Roublennaya, which is in itself a remake of Erbar-Grotesk. This is not unlike Literaturnaya, formerly called Latinskaya, which was a remake of Lateinisch, which was in itself a remake, or a version, of typefaces made during the Romana genre period. There are few digital versions of Literaturnaya now. Two unofficial releases, one by alias !22! Soft and the other by Marath Salychow, both have a subjective but noticeable lack in typographical prowess and functionality. Proportions are not uniform and a lot of glyphs or symbols are absent. The only professional release was designed by Lyubov Kuznetsova in the Russian type foundry ParaGraph in 1996; it is currently available via ParaType, a type publishing company, who owns the library of ParaGraph.

In September 2022, ParaType CEO Anna Yakupova “welcomed the annexation of the occupied territories of Ukraine,” which created great controversy in the type design community. Estonian designers unanimously called for a boycott towards ParaType, the aforementioned type foundry, who are the sole publisher of Literaturnaya. Other Russian employees of ParaType and non-Russian ParaType affiliates, such as the company in the United States, condemn the statement by the Russian CEO, yet the uproar continues.