Nice typeface, does anyone know it?

My grandfather lived in Winschoten in the province of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. He worked as an apprentice with an agricultural cultivating firm, that also traded in seeds and did some landscaping. The latter mostly in the form of gardens. When grandfather left the job in 1908, he got a certificate, written by the owner himself on company stationary. See the small picture on the left that may be enlarged by clicking on it.

What struck me immediately was the typeface of the print. A peculiar, somewhat fin-de-siècle design, with unexperted curls. Notice the way the C and H are formed into a ligature in the name Winschoten.

My big question: does anyone recognize the typeface, of could someone point me in the direction of a good enough resemblance. I could of course recreate the font myself, but that takes a lot of time. I searched the archives in Groningen for more information about the company building, and yes! they did have a picture postcard of it:

Struggling with Japanese Katakana

When working with non-Western characters you sometimes encounter special problems. For instance the Katakana syllabary, a set of 47 different sounds from Japanese that are used to represent Western names and objects. The basic sounds are not enough to get all the different sounds in languages other than Japanese. Therefore it is possible to combina two characters to create a new one. When doing this, the first character is standard in height, the second is smaller. An example may be seen in the chart I scanned. Take the "nyo", which is made from the character "ni", followed bij a smaller "yo". The result is pronounced as "nyo".

The problem I now have is: how much smaller should the second character be in relation to the first? It looks like 50 percent but it is hard to tell. It could be dependant on the style of writing (whether the text is indeed written or printed) or the person writing. I guess I'll have to do some experimenting, unless someone has a bright idea.

Practical application of the fonts

It's always nice to get feedback, from people who like my fonts and do something with it. The latest is Jan van Cadsand, a true fan of the Amsterdamse School. He likes to take walks in Amsterdam, visiting famous spots like "Het Schip" (The Ship) a building designed by De Klerk. This complex houses a museum nowadays, but there are also lots of ordinary dwellings in it. Not all the people who live there are happy with the hordes of architectural tourists that bring their cameras along and photograph everything that's in sight. Some people do tend to stretch the posibilities, by putting their camera against the window and take pictures of the interior of people's houses.

But, if you just take pictures of the outside, without invading anyone's privacy then Het Schip is the place to be. Jan did that, and he uses my font Mokum Betondorp to put text in his pictures. Well done, Jan. If anyone has used my fonts in a remarkable way, please let me know!

Just In Time

I like to retrace my steps sometimes, just to see if everything is still like I thought it was. I did that this week, only to find out that I had been just in time to photograph the original steel letters that were designed by Dick Greiner. These formed the basis for my font Mokum Betondorp.

The Vereenigingsgebouw (Community Building in English) as I photographed it in 2005 no longer exists. It has been sold (or rented) to a religious group, see the right-hand side of the picture. The building now is a temple. When I checked on the internet I first searched voor Shri Luru, the name that was attached to the building. That turned out to be a mistake, the second word is Guru, not Luru. This proves immediately that the font used voor the sign is not all too clear. But, perhaps the Western alphabets are difficult for scholars versed in Sanskrit. I don't really know, I'm just glad I went there in time to capture the original lettering. Judge for yourself, click on the picture to get a larger version on your screen.