Akzidenz-Grotesk

Common card · No. 253244

Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin in 1898. The German Akzidenz (literally 'jobbing' or 'used for jobs') indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tickets, and forms—as opposed to fine printing—and Grotesk, akin to grotesque, was a standard name for sans-serif typefaces at the time (grotesque in its original sense; bizarre, odd, or outlandish, not necessarily ugly, but visually jarring and outside the norm at the time). Originating during the late nineteenth century, Akzidenz-Grotesk belongs to a tradition of general-purpose, unadorned sans-serif types that had become dominant in German printing during the nineteenth century. Relatively little-known for a half-century after its introduction, it achieved iconic status in the post-war period as the preferred typeface of many Swiss graphic designers in what became called the "International" or "Swiss" design style which became...

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