Albertus® Font Family

Albertus® Light (Monotype Originals) More details ... Add to shopping cart Price from: US$ 26.00

Albertus® Roman (Monotype Originals) More details ... Add to shopping cart Price from: US$ 26.00

Albertus® Italic (Monotype Originals) More details ... Add to shopping cart Price from: US$ 26.00

Albertus Complete Family Pack (Monotype Originals) More details ... Add to shopping cart Price from: US$ 87.00

Berthold Wolpe – born 29. 10. 1905 in Offenbach, Germany, died 5. 7. 1989 in London, England – typographer, type designer, teacher. 1924–27: studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Offenbach under Rudolf Koch. Then trains as a goldsmith in Pforzheim. 1929–33: teaches at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Offenbach and from 1930–33 at the art school in Frankfurt am Main. Designs commemorative reports, trademarks, posters, book covers and typefaces. 1932: meets Stanley Morison. 1935: emigrates to England. [...]

Written by Berthold Wolpe himself, the story of the genesis of Albertus®: "When I first came to London in the summer of 1932, I met Mr. Stanley Morison. He had seen photographs of some bronze inscriptions of mine which interested him and asked me to design for the Monotype Corporation a printing type of capital letters based on the lettering developed for these bronze inscriptions. I had been through a fairly thorough training in a bronze foundry and in addition had done gold and [...]

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Berthold Wolpe designed Albertus from 1932 to 1940, with Albertus Titling being released first, and the lowercase a few years later. Stanley Morison commissioned the face for Monotype in England and named it after Albert the Great, medieval scientist and philosopher. Wolpe based the type on the lettering he did on bronze tablets. Such inscriptions were made by cutting back the ground around the letters and shaping them from the outside of their forms, rather than the inside, as incised letters in stone are done. Wolpe said his technique made for bold simplicity and reduced the serifs to a bare minimum. This sharp chisel stroke at the terminations of the main strokes was said to make the alphabet stand midway between classical letters and the modern sans serif. Albertus is available in three weights, and makes a strong graphic statement of originality and integrity.