While continuing on the theme of fraktur—or blackletter type in this case...
I cannot overlook the monospaced typewriter versions. Blackletter typewriters (otherwise referred to as frakturschrift in German), are difficult to find today, as they were made mostly for the German market up until 1941. German authorities outlawed the use of Blackletters at that time as they considered them to be "Jewish letters", and as I reported earlier this week, Blackletter virtually disappeared from print for nearly 50 years. Not until Disneyland adopted the use of a stylized Blackletter for their logotype in the mid-1950s, did it begin to see a reemergence. In the 1990s, Blackletter's revival was truly sparked when many styles began to be digitized, and their proliferation has continued to steadily increase ever since that time.
The Blackletter keyboard layout above is from my Flickrfriend, Georg Sommeregger's beautiful 1933 Urania Piccola (I'm guessing an Italian typewriter?) You can also see a nice monospaced typewritten sample from it which he posted here. |
Viva letterology!
ReplyDeleteUrania Piccola (meaning small) is an Italian-sounding name, but so are – and were – many products for the German market. Urania is the name of a German institution for adult education. The keyboard is obviously German; it shows the Umlaut –äöü – as well as the ligatures ch, ck and st, plus the ß and a long s which has to be used at the beginning of a word or syllable in Fraktur.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your insights erik. It makes more sense that it is made in Germany.
DeleteFirst and foremost, Urania, in Greek mythology, is the muse of astronomy - hence the stars in the Urania logo. As a typewriter brand, it derived from the Austrian-made Albus, then the Perkeo, and was produced by Clemens Müller in Dresden, Germany.
DeleteSee Urania and her stars <a href="http://typewriters.ch/collection/urania_piccola.html>here</a>.
Well done! I really enjoyed the article you posted! From mow on I am totally conveniences that typing industry at the beginning of the 20th century has really contributed a lot in ">modern fonts industry.Thank you!
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