Architype Van Doesburg is a geometric

sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...

typeface based upon a 1919 alphabet designed by

Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (; born Christian Emil Marie Küpper; 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch painter, writer, poet and architect. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He married three times. Personal life Theo van Do ...

, a cofounder of the

De Stijl De Stijl (, ; 'The Style') was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 by a group of artists and architects based in Leiden (Theo van Doesburg, Jacobus Oud, J.J.P. Oud), Voorburg (Vilmos Huszár, Jan Wils) and Laren, North Holland, Laren (Piet Mo ...

art movement. The digital revival shown at right was produced by

Freda Sack Freda Sack (born 23 September 1951, died 13 February 2019) was a British type designer who began her career at Letraset in 1972, joining as a photographic retoucher. Colleagues attest to her skill at cutting letters from rubylith at Letraset where ...

and David Quay of The Foundry. The face is constructed entirely of perpendicular evenly weighted strokes. Each character is based upon a square divided into a raster of 25 smaller squares. Van Doesburg's earliest uses of the alphabet was in limited quantity, made up of letterpress ruling pieces, and not as strictly formed as his more finished 1919 version. A similarly constructed rectilinear sans-serif typeface, designed in 1917 by

Piet Zwart Piet Zwart (; 28 May 1885 – 24 September 1977) was a Dutch photographer, typography, typographer, and industrial designer. Biography Early life Piet Zwart was born on May 28, 1885, in Zaandijk. He trained as an architect, and began graphic ...

bears comparison. The face is similar to Van Doesburg's later 1928 alphabet designed for the Café Aubette in Strasbourg. Both faces anticipate later typographic explorations of geometric reductionism of Wim Crouwel's 1967 ''New Alphabet'' and early digital faces like Zuzana Licko's faces ''Lo-Res'' and ''Emperor 8.'' The Architype Van Doesburg typeface is part of a collection of several revivals of early twentieth century typographic experimentation designed by Freda Sack and David Quay of The Foundry.

References

*Friedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. ''Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History.'' Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. . *Hoek, Els, Marleen Blokhuis, Ingrid Goovaerts, Natalie Kamphuys, et al. ''Theo van Doesburg: Oeuvre Catalogus.''

Centraal Museum The Centraal Museum is the main museum in Utrecht (city), Utrecht, Netherlands, founded in 1838. The museum has a wide-ranging collection, mainly of works produced locally. The collection of the paintings by the Northern Mannerist Joachim Wte ...

: 2000. . *Lupton, Ellen. ''Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students,'' Princeton Architectural Press: 2004. . *Strauss, Monica. ''Graphic Design and Typography in the Netherlands: A View of Recent Work,'' "Prelude: The Avant-Garde Trajectory in Holland." Princeton Architectural Press: 1992. {{ISBN, 1-878271-62-8.

External links

Architype 1 types
Geometric sans-serif typefaces