Vtg Stencil Germany No.1

Vtg StencilGermany #1

truevintagetype

fonts by Andreas Seidel

Vtg Stencil Germany No. 1 | typeface specimen www.astype.de | © 2013 Andreas Seidel

The Vtg Stencil series of fonts from astype are based on real world stencils. The Germany No. 1 design was derived from authentic antique German stencil plates produced by August Mentel factory Berlin.

Surprisingly these stencil plates offer a high contrast Didot design very similar to the French stencils produced and sold till today. I’m not quite sure about the right time period these plates are manufactured, but I have seen some of the distribution tin boxes. Some of these boxes have pre-art nouveau label designs, typical for the 1880ths. I think the production time is in the range of the German imperial period (1871 ‒ 1918). Of course the usage period was even longer.

The pictures on the right showing stencil sets of caps, lower case let-ters and figures including a typical tin box. Some sets offering figures in caps height, some sets offer figures in smaller sizes. This is similar to lots of French stencils sets I collected.

One set included an additional letter s, the long s (ſ) and pre-composed signs for libra (lb / pound) and the old German currency sings Mark and Pfen nig (Mk. / Pf.). These currency signs give us a hint of the time period too. With the foundation of the German Empire (Kaiserreich) in 1871, the Mark (Goldmark) currency system was introduced for the whole area of Germany.

I used stencils of 25 mm design height for the caps and lower case let-ters. For the figures I used two sets of 20 and 25 mm height.

In the end I’m really happy to have found a proper lower case stencil set in good condition with all letters intact, so I was able to made a full featured font. All styles offer an extended Latin character set.

Original German stencil plates made of zinc brass and tin box.

All stencil plates from the tin box.

True VinTage ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ &abcdefghijklmnopqr sſtuvwxyz lb. Mk. Pf. 0123456789


Even today you can still find some of these stencils still in use. Photo number one shows street names of allotment gardens near Volkspark Rehberge at Berlin Tegel. The figures are based on stencils of Din type style. These Din stencils are the common and still produced stencils in Germany. Photos number two and three show stencils on doors at the train station Berlin Ostbah-nhof. Of course, the letter H is form a bigger stencil plate and the letter t was not available, so it was custom painted by hand.

uSeage Samples

1

2 3

FriTZ AN,SPaẞ DaRan!

Hand-made stencils and distorted grungy type designs are very popular these days. But you will note, lots of these layouts use pre-made fonts witch one sketch for each letter only. As you can see on the right, this Berlin advert for a radio station use the same sketches for the letters R, N and A. So the elusion of real hand-made sketch type is not perfect. My astype stencil fonts offer you up to 4 variations for every base glyph and for the figures.

Have a look to the sample beneath. No one of these letters is based on the same sketch!

Four Variations of every Base Letter

FRITZ AN,SPAẞ DARAN!

• full Latin character set

• clean outlines

→ fast screen redraws


• hand-drawn sketch style

• many glyph variations

• extensive random function (OpenType calt)

→ average screen redraws


• smart rought outlines

• many glyph variations

• extensive random function (OpenType calt)

→ slow screen redraws

Philagoue 52Philagoue 52Philagoue 52

Regular

Sketch

Paint

The FoNT StyleS


font style: Regularaverage points per glyph: 59points in font: 26 000 N N

Naaaasssssxxxx


n n

nfont style: Paintaverage points per glyph: 2095points in font: 1 540 000

shape variations

aaaasssssxxxx


n n

nfont style: Sketchaverage points per glyph: 566points in font: 415 000

shape variations

aaaasssssxxxx


ABBA kingsaBBa questABBAABBA

kingsquest

Brauerei Kronenburg•Dortmunt 1912•

HALT! leBeNSgeFaHr

Minengelände.

WeIN Aus DeutSchen LANden


Roſmarinus officinalis

Agaſtache rugoſa „Alba“

Artemiſia arboreſcens


Prune & Apricot Growers Ass’n. San Jose. California

CalIFORnIaPRuneS™


HelpestablishlibraryProjektin Jamica

Educationfor a change!

Growers Brand

Growers Brand

PicasSo

Vtg Stencil Germany No. 1 | typeface specimen

Pure Sencesthe new collection | raffaello & nesbø

phot

ogra

phy

by G

iorg

io G

ruiz

za

DeepBlueLightphotography by thomas vogel

Sketch World

Wood Bonnet Antique # 7 Vtg Stencil US #4 Vtg Stencil germany # 1

AstypeVintage Fonts

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Documents

Vtg Stencil Germany No.1