Blackletter

Broken font is a collective name for a number of Latin fonts in which the arcs of a point are completely or partially broken, that is, arising from a writing exercise, in the left one or more identifiable abrupt change in direction of the strokes a visible kink in the curve. This contrasts with the round, not broken fonts as the Antiqua, where the arcs arise when writing of a uniformly curved movement.

Formation

In the mid-12th century, the art style of Gothic architecture developed in Europe. One of the most striking changes in the architecture was the transition from the Romanesque arches of the pointed Gothic pointed arches. This style element of the arc of refraction has been applied in the following also the arches of the letters. This resulted from the round Carolingian minuscule, the first broken font, Gothic minuscule.

Broken fonts

Among the broken scripts:

• Gothic minuscule
• Gothic Textura
• (Also called round or Halbgotisch ) Rotunda
• Schwabacher
• Fracture
• German cursive
• Sütterlinschrift
• Offenbacher font

According to DIN 16518 the broken scripts in the five subgroups Gothic ( Textura ) Rotunda ( Rotunda ), Fraktur and Schwabacher Fraktur variants are divided.

Use

The broken fonts are a deeply rooted part of European literary culture, but lost in the course of the 19th century in importance. Only in Germany remained broken fonts popular until well into the 20th century. At German schools all students learned to read and write broken fonts. 1941 banished the normal font adopting the broken fonts from school curricula and official use of Scripture. Then the broken scripts disappeared in Germany rapidly than use writings from everyday life. Last remains are found today only in newspaper heads, signs, company logos and labels. As a typographic style means they are here for historical importance, a sense of tradition, rural simplicity or popularity.

Since the 1970s, broken writings also appear in youth cultures such as metal, hardcore and gothic. Here the writings symbolize no tradition of care, but breaking with the prevailing contemporary culture.

Prison tattoos, especially in the font Old English are common among skinheads and gangsta rappers. They are linked to a symbolism that in 1942 summarized the Viennese historian Heinrich Fichtenau in his thesis: it was " the Antiqua font of rational, cool objective thinker; the fracture that of the more subjective, perpetrator ', at least the high vitality gifted, which is so often merely on the edge of a mandatory community without their belonging to serving. "

Because of the low demand for blackletter and the high cost of materials for lead letters had in the late 1980s only a few printers remainders of broken letters. However, the situation changed with the development of the computer record. Commercial font foundries and typographers free now digitized and broken fonts. Today, a variety of high quality fonts for every computer user is available. As a result, today a new generation of typographers this centuries-old families rediscovered, not for ideological reasons, but out of interest in the aesthetic and artisanal qualities of blackletter.

Quotes

Rudolf Koch once wrote about the broken font: "How dark firs spicy aroma of resin, such as when the blackbird widely calls through the evening, as the meadow grass wavers slightly delicacy, most glorious, most German of Scripture, we love you long time ".

Johann Friedrich Unger wrote in 1793 about a possible abolition of the Gothic script, "Why should we Germans herein do originality waiver? The foreigners who want to learn our language, to favor? That this nation any relief for us? - To get to know characters, is for an adult to work fewer hours, or at least comes in but no consideration. Who are serious about learning the German language, will not be deterred by a so very little effort certainly increased. "