Akzidenz-Grotesk. (Author unknown), ~1898. Berthold Type Foundry. Grotesque (Sans).
First issued by Berthold in 1898 as Accidenz-Grotesk. Many loosely related styles from various sources were incorporated into the family. Further extended and homogenized by G.G. Lange from the late 1950s on. Lange regarded Royal-Groteskas the key source and credited it to Ferdinand Theinhardt, but that is refuted, see Eckehart Schumacher-Gebler’s article in Schriftgestalten (2008), Indra Kupferschmid’s blog post, and, most detailed, Dan Reynolds’s article and lecture (2019). Distributed in the US and UK as Standard [Meggs] and commonly used in the 1950s–60s.
AG Old Face (1984) is a redrawing made for phototypesetting that returns to the original forms prior to the 1950s homogenization.
Linotype’s digital version was renamed to Basic Commercial for trademark reasons. Berthold’s digitization was reworked as Akzidenz Grotesk Next (2006). Akzidenz Grotesk Pro (2007) adds Cyrillics (by Vladimir Yefimov, Condensed by Gayaneh Bagdasaryan) and Greek (by Panos Haratzopoulos). [Typophile] CastleType’s Standard CT is a digital interpretation that uses the export name.
More notes on: https://klim.co.nz/blog/new-details-about-origins-akzidenz-grotesk/
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