Walbaum-Antiqua

Didone is a genre of serif typeface that emerged in the late 18th century and was the standard type style for general-purpose typesetting during the 19th century. The name of the category is a combination of the surnames of the famous type founders Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni, whose efforts defined the style around the beginning of the nineteenth century.   Today, Walbaum-Antiqua is one of the most famous German typefaces in the Didone style. But its widespread acclaim d

Justus Erich Walbaum was born in 1768 in Steinlah, near Goslar. His father was a pastor, but Justus Erich chose a different path and began an apprenticeship as a merchant with a spice trader and confectioner in Braunschweig. In addition to his commercial activities, Justus Erich Walbaum also got involved in craftsmanship, such as the production of baking molds. Initially, this involved woodworking, but later Walbaum also ventured into steel engraving, eventually giving up his merchant profession

At the end of the 18th century, Weimar became a cultural center of Germany. It is known as the Golden Age of the city, when some of most renowned German poets and writers (like Goethe and Schiller) moved to Weimar. One of the most active publishers in Weimar was Friedrich Justin Bertuch. He heard of Walbaum’s good reputation asked him to move to Weimar.  This move took place in 1803.  According to the preserved samples from that time, the type families Walbaum-Antiqua and Walbaum-Frak

The publisher Bertuch brought Justus Erich Walbaum to Weimar and was an influential advocate for the use of roman typefaces—such as Walbaum-Antiqua—for German texts. But the type family still didn’t became successful at that time. The German printers who wanted to use roman typefaces were still in the minority and many had already bought their roman fonts from Prillwitz. And the attempts to establish, what was being understood as “French typography”, ended with the war between the Fourth Coaliti

Walbaum’s type foundry stayed in business until the 1830s. Justus Erich Walbaum passed on his business to his son Theodor in 1828. The designs of the foundry can be seen in a type specimen published in the 1830s through the trade magazine “Journal der Buchdruckerkunst”. (see link at the end) But Theodor Walbaum died before his father and Justus Erich Walbaum was left with no choice but to sell the foundry. A few of the materials were taken over by local foundries, but most of the material were

It’s safe to say that Walbaum-Antiqua wasn’t well known at the beginning of the 20th century. Nevertheless, it appeared in a few high-quality book productions, sparking a new interest in Justus Erich Walbaum’s designs from around 1800. Brockhaus published a new type specimen booklet (see below), now calling the roman designs Walbaum-Antiqua and the blackletter designs Walbaum-Fraktur.   In the meantime, the Brockhaus foundry had been taken over by the H. Berthold AG, one of the biggest Euro

The new release appeared first as foundry type in roman and italic, based on the original matrices.  A Walbaum type case with a small sharp s (ß) — an addition to the character set from the 20th century. 

A version of Walbaum-Antiqua for Intertype typesetting machines. 

The Monotype version contained two weights. 

During the 1970s, Walbaum-Antiqua was redesigned for phototypesetting under the direction of Günter Gerhard Lange. Two versions were released by Berthold: Walbaum Book for larger sizes (in three weights) and Walbaum Standard for smaller sizes (in two weights). Both versions also contained small caps. 

in East Germany, a phototypesetting version was designed by Hans-Peter Greinke. It consists of two weights with italics. 

An extensive digital revival was released in 2010 by the Storm Type Foundry. Walbaum 2010 Pro contains two optical sizes, two x-height choices, a Latin, Cyrillic and Greek character set and three weights. 

Monotype released an extensive redesign of Walbaum-Antiqua in 2018, designed by Charles Nix, Carl Crossgrove, Juan Villanueva and Lynne Yun. It spans over 69 fonts, including five optical sizes in 3 to 10 weights with italics.