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Rudolf Koch

Great German type designer (b. Nürnberg, 1876; d. Frankfurt, 1934) who worked mainly at the Klingspor foundry. He founded the Offenbach Werkstatt in 1921. This page lists 158 royalty-free Christian symbols drawn by Rudolf Koch, a religious Lutheran, with the collaboration of Fritz Kredel (1900-1973) (see also here). Biography by Nicholas Fabian. Bio at Linotype. Bio in German. For an English reference work on his life, check Gerald Cinamon's book Rudolf Koch: Letterer, Type Designer, Teacher (2000, Oak Knoll Press (USA) and The British Library (UK)). The Koch Memorial page offers historical notes and many free revivals of his faces.

Many of his typefaces can be classified as German expressionist. These include Kabel (a sans), and Neuland (an angular poster face).

His typefaces, with notes on digitizations:

• Claudius (1931-1934, 1937, D. Stempel AG): His son Paul Koch followed Rudolf's instructions to make one weight in 1931-1934. Klingspor completed it in 1937. Delbanco (as DS-Claudius) and Klaus Burkhardt (1991) digitized it. Based on the latter, Manfred Klein made ClaudiusImperator (2001). Dieter Steffmann made Claudius, ClaudiusAlternate, and ClaudiusHeadline in 2003. Ralph M. Unger published Claudius in 2010.
• Deutsche Anzeigenschrift (1913-1914), Deutsche Anzeigenschrift schmal (1916-1923, D. Stempel AG): See SchmaleAnzeigenschrift (2002) and SchmaleAnzeigenschriftZier (2002) by Dieter Steffmann, and Schmale Anzeigenfraktur (2009) by Ralph Unger.
• Deutsche Anzeigenschrift eng (1923)
• Deutsche Anzeigenschrift breit (1923, D. Stempel AG)
• Deutsche Anzeigen. schmalhf. (1934, D. Stempel AG)
• Deutsche Schrift mager (1918, Gebr. Klingspor)
• Deutsche Schrift halbfett (1912, Gebr. Klingspor): Deutsche Schrift (or: Koch-Fraktur) was revived by Gerhard Helzel as KochFrakturSchmaleHalbfette (2000), by Christian Richter as Rudolf Koch (2003), and by Delbanco as DS Koch Fraktur. It was a popular family, known in England as Oxford. For comparison, here is a phototype version.
• Deutsche Schrift fett (1910, Gebr. Klingspor): Fette Deutsche Schrift was revived by Dieter Steffmann in 2002 (as Fette Deutsche Schrift) and by Alter Littera in 2012 as Deutsche Schrift.
• Deutsche Schrift schmal (1913, Gebr. Klingspor)
• Deutsche Schrägschrift (1912, Gebr. Klingspor).
• Deutsche Werkschrift (1934, D. Stempel AG): This is really the "mager" version of Deutsche Anzeigenschrift. Delbanco revived it digitally as DS Deutsche Werkschrift.
• Deutsche Werkschrift hablfett (1934, D. Stempel AG).
• Deutsche Zierschrift (1921, Gebr. Klingspor): Revived as Zierinitialen by Dieter Steffmann in 2002. See also Delbanco's DS Deutsche Zierschrift (Delbanco).
• Frühling (1913-1917, Gebr. Klingspor) is a blackletter that seems to have been executed with a shaky hand---it is definitely one of Koch's weakest and ugliest designs. Incredibly, the revival gang was still eager to spring into action: it was revived and interpreted by Frantisek Storm in Monarchia. See also Delbanco's DS Frühling. For another revival, see Next Stringtime by Manfred Klein (2003). Frühling is sometimes called Kartenschrift.
• Grotesk Initialen (1933, Gebr. Klingspor): Paul Hayden Duensing made Koch Initials (metal).
• Holla (1932, Gebr. Klingspor): Digitized by Dieter Steffmann in 2001.
• Kabel (1927, Gebr. Klingspor): The most famous digitization of this Koch Sans family is by Victor Caruso in ITC Kabel (1976), and with its exaggerated x-height, much larger than the original, it is a poor bastard. The modern Bitstream version is called Geometric 231. Softmaker calls it Koblenz. Poster by Jorge Martinez.
• Kabel Kursiv (1929, Gebr. Klingspor)
• Kabel groß (1928, Gebr. Klingspor): LinotypeLibrary
• Kabel Kursiv groß (1930, Gebr. Klingspor)
• Norm Kabel (1930, Gebr. Klingspor): LinotypeLibrary
• Kabel fett (1929, Gebr. Klingspor): LinotypeLibrary
• Kabel schmal (1930, Gebr. Klingspor)
• Kabel schmalhalbfett (1929, Gebr. Klingspor)
• Koch Antiqua (or: Locarno) (1920-1922, Gebr. Klingspor): This gorgeous tall-legged typeface was designed in 1917, but cut in 1922. There exists a multiple master font AIKochAntiqua by Randall Jones (Alphabets Inc). See also LinotypeLibrary, and Astaire Pro (2004, Bergslund Design), as well as KochAltschrift (2004, Moorstation crew), and Locarno (1985, Alan Meeks for Letraset).
• Koch Kursiv (1923, Gebr. Klingspor): Kursiv version of Koch Antiqua.
• Koch Kursiv groß (1929, Gebr. Klingspor)
• Koch Antiqua fett (1926, Gebr. Klingspor). Some give the date 1923-1924. Digital versions include Eva Antiqua, Eva SG (Spiece Graphics), Eva (Monotype), Astaire Pro (Hackberry), Locarno (Letraset), Kuenstler 165 (Bitstream), Koch Antiqua (Adobe, Linotype), Evadare (David Nalle).
• Koch Kurrent (1933, Gebr. Klingspor): This is Koch's version of school scripts, a variant of his earlier proposal, Offenbacher Schrift (1927). It was only cut in 1935. See Rudolf Koch Kurrent at Delbanco
• Koch Schrift (1909) is a Schwabacher first known as Neudeutsch and later as Koch Schrift. It was used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn, ca. 1930. For a digital revival, see, e.g., Koch Schrift (1998, Ingo Zimmermann).
• Marathon (1930-1938, Gebr. Klingspor): Digitized by Linotype in 2003 as Marathon LT (by Ute Harder, aka Frau Jenson), and by Softmaker a bit earlier. The best digital version is by the Koch Memorial team of Petra Heidorn under the name Romantha (a permutation of the letters) in 2003 (it preserves the original x-height better, for example).
• Maximilian (Gotisch) (1914-1917, Gebr. Klingspor): Walden Font has a revival. See also Maximilian at Delbanco. Castletype made MaximilianCS. In 1995, Doug Olena revived it as Maximilian. Dieter Steffmann made Maximilian (2002) and Maximilian Zier (2002). Maximilian (2012) is due to Alter Littera. Drawings for Maximilian-Gotisch. Gerhard Helzel's revival from 1995. Stephen Miggas's revival called Gothicus (2006).
• Maximilian Antiqua (1913-1917, Gebr. Klingspor): Manfred Klein made Maximilian Antiqua (2003) and MaximilianAntiquaSmallCaps (2003). For an initial caps extension, see Typograf's Maximilian Antiqua Initialen (2015).
• Neuland (1923, Gebr. Klingspor): An all caps German expressionist typeface chiseled directly by Koch from metal. Copied by Monotype in 1929 as OthelloMT. Digitized by Linotype Library. Also digitized as Newland Black by Andrey Mel'man. In 1995, Doug Olena (Keystrokes) revived it as FFD Neuland (1995). A lower case and hair-serifed extension was created by Manfred Klein as OnKochsRoots (2002). He also made KochNeu-ExtraBlack (2003). Nick Curtis made Jungle Fever and Jungle Fever Shaded (2008) after Neuland. In 2010, Ian Lynam published yet another update, Neuerland. In 2013, Lazar Dimitrijevic created Cal Neuland Bold.
• Neuland licht (1928, Gebr. Klingspor): This is an outline version of Neuland.
• Neu Fraktur (1933-1934, Gebr. Klingspor): Koch's last Fraktur.
• Offenbach (1928-1934, Gebr. Klingspor): Made for display in church windows, Koch designed the "mager" weight (1931) and an uncial version. His student Hans Kühne finished the "halbfett" and the gothic after his death.
• Peter Jessen Schrift (1924-1929, Gebr. Klingspor): Koch called this his Bibelschrift. See DS-Jessen-Schrift (1998) by Christian Spremberg and Peter Jessen Schrift at Delbanco. For extrapolated interpretations, see JessicaPlus (2002) and JessicaSerif (2003) by Manfred Klein, and Jessen Schrift (2004) by Ralph M. Unger.
• Prisma (1928-1931, Gebr. Klingspor): A four-lined art deco face. Revived by Dieter Steffmann (2003-2004) as Prisma, and by Ralph Unger as Prisma Pro (2011).
• Stahl (1933-1939): Done with H. Kühne. Revived by J.F.Y.Daniel Gauthier - GautFonts as StahlSteel (2003) and StahlSteelRiveted (2003).
• Wallau (1924-1932, Gebr. Klingspor): See Wallaby on the SoftMaker MegaFont XXL CD, 2002, or Wallau by Fraktur.de or DS Wallau by Delbanco, or Wallau (2012) by Alter Littera. Pictures by Dan Reynolds about Klingspor's Wallau speciman book (1939). Wallau, which comes in rotunda (Rundgotisch) and uncial, was named after Heinrich Wallau (1852-1925), a printer from Mainz. Originally, the typeface was going to be called Missale.
• Wallau halbfett (1930, Gebr. Klingspor): Revived by Dieter Steffmann as WallauDeutsch-Bold (2002), Wallau Rundgotisch Heavy (2002), Wallau Rundgotisch OsF Heavy (2002), WallauUnzial-Bold (2002) and WallauZierBold (2002). Also digitized by PrimaFont.
• Wallau fett (1935, Gebr. Klingspor)
• Wallau schmal (1934, Gebr. Klingspor).
• Wilhelm-Klingspor-Schrift. (1920-1926, Gebr. Klingspor): This was originally called Missal. To commemorate Wilhelm Klingspor, who died in 1925 from a war injury, it was renamed Wilhelm-Klingspor-Gotisch. Paul Hayden Duensing made a metal version under the latter name. Digitizations by Fraktur.de and Delbanco. See also Wilhelm-Klingspor-Schrift at LinotypeLibary, Wilhelm Klingspor Schrift (2012) by Alter Littera, Wilhelmschrift (2006) by Stephen Miggas, and Missal by Dieter Steffmann (2003). Matching decorative caps were made in 2004 by Paul Lloyd under the name Holzschnitt-Initialen.
• Zeppelin (1929, Gebr. Klingspor): This is a decorative (inline) version of Kabel. Revived as Zeppelin in 2003 by Dieter Steffmann. Imitations abound, see, e.g., Scriptorium's Evadare (1993).

FontShop link. Klingspor link.

View digital typefaces based on Rudolf Koch's work.

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