Learning with Fonts
Typeface as an educational tool
Yesterday, on Notes, a reader of my other newsletter asked me to suggest ways that he might teach himself to read German-language texts printed in Fraktur. (Also known as Gothic, this was the typeface used by most printers in Germany until 1941, when a prominent political figure of artistic inclinations forbade its use.)
The first idea that came to mind used parallel texts. That is, I imagined that the would-be reader of old-timely type using a presentation program (such as PowerPoint or Keynote) to create an image that compared two versions of the same passage, one printed in a familiar font and one in the letters he wished to learn.
In the course of making the illustrations for this post, it occurred to me that some versions of Fraktur offered fewer obstacles to present-day readers than others. Thus, the typeface tyro might want to try out a variety of fonts, some of which would, no doubt, prove more congenial than others.
(I recommend Tannenberg Fett and Albert Text. The former looks a lot like a ‘special for titles and signs’ typeface that became popular after the ban on full-blooded Fraktur went into effect. The latter might be described as ‘gothic-adjacent’.)
Finally, I found myself thinking that a would-be Frakturfreund might want to begin by reading English texts printed in the target typeface.
The German passage comes Friedrich von Schiller Die Huldigung der Künste: Ein lyrisches Spiel (Tübingen: JG Cotta, 1805) page 20. The (rather free) translation is an ill-favored thing, but mine own.
