Developed by UK designer Richard Yeend in 2002, the Linotype Richmond Zierschrift family is a calligraphic
fraktur typeface. The fraktur variety of blackletter type originated around 1517 in Nuremberg, Germany. The term
blackletter itself refers to all typefaces that evolved out of Northern Europe's medieval manuscript tradition. They are often called gothic, medieval, or Old English typefaces.
Linotype Richmond Fraktur works best in short text settings. Richard Yeend had designed a companion titling family, which works very well in conjunction with Linotype Richmond Fraktur for headlines. This other family of faces,
Linotype Richmond Zierschrift, uses the same basic letter shapes, but incorporates subtle, engraved details into the forms that would not be legible in smaller text sizes.
The Linotype Richmond Fraktur family has three font styles available for purchase:
Linotype Richmond Fraktur Regular is a standard typeface that may be used for any application.
Linotype Richmond Fraktur DFR contains many alternates, such as the long s, which are necessary to properly set historical documents according to their original standards.
Linotype Richmond Fraktur Alternate may be used in conjunction with either of the other two faces; it contains many additional ligatures, as well as alternate first and last letters, allowing for especially calligraphic words, lines, or pages.
The entire Linotype Richmond family, including both the Fraktur and Zierschrift styles, is part of the Linotype
TakeType 4 collection.
