The Signal typefaces from the H. Berthold AG

Signal was designed by Walter Wege and released in the 1930s by H. Berthold AG in several styles: A light and a regular, a narrow bold for eye-catching headlines and even a version using German Kurrent letterforms.

The design makes the typical writing style of German sign painters of the time available as letterpress font. But this was quite a challenge for the designer! Today, with OpenType and contextual alternates, it wouldn’t be too difficult to create such a connected script. But with letterpress fonts it’s a different story.

In order for any letter to connect perfectly to any other letter, many compromises had to be made. For example: Rounded letters couldn’t actually be round at the side. They needed a flat part which could then connect to the adjacent letters. Some letters needed quite an unusual design to allow connections with any other letters. Have a look a the lowercase z for example. And letters with a lot of white-space actually needed to contain a stroke for the next letter. Have a look at the upperca

The light style. 

The original, regular style released in 1931. 

The bold style of the Signal family. 

The light and the normal style next to each other. 

ch ligatures were obligatory for German blackletter fonts at that time, but they were also often shipped with non-blackletter fonts. 

The designs shows design choices typical for the lettering work of sign painters. 

A complete digitization was released in 2025 as FDI Lettograph, covering all three styles.