Bremer Antiqua Revival
My revival project for Type West was of the typeface Bremer Antiqua. It was designed in 1912 for Bremer Presse, a small German private press (1911–1939), considered a benchmark in German book design. Willy Wiegand, founder of Bremer Presse, designed the typeface for proprietary use by the press.
Bremer Antiqua is a text typeface intended for use in editorial design for when one requires a conservative typeface with quirky character and rhythmic, dense texture on the page.
The typeface revival was created during Term 1 of Type West with co-instructors Graham Bradley and Kel Troughton, held online at Letterform Archive in 2021.
Typeface Design
Comparison of the revival (right) with the original (left)
The source material was a single page of the book Cornelii Taciti Germania, printed in 1912 (image made available through Ketterer Kunst, an auction house in Italy). A comparison is pictured below.
I missed out a lot of details in my initial sketches—some of them being characteristic of the typeface—which became clearer on closer inspection.
First sketches
Comparison of the revival (right) with the original (left)
Current character set
Type specimen layout inspired by the Brandon Grotesque printed type booklet
Type specimen layout inspired by the Brandon Grotesque printed type booklet
