The book brings together researchers from the fields of typography, palaeography and incunabula studies, with a particular focus on type and letterforms. The relatively understudied period – after Gutenberg and before the consolidation of Jenson’s model – extends from the earliest traces of ‘humanistic’ tendencies to ‘pure’ roman type, including many cases of uncertain or experimental design, voluntary hybridisation and proto- or archaic roman. In 1459 in Mainz, Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer printed the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum by Guillaume Durand, using a typeface (now known as ‘Durandus’) that looked like no other before. From that point, we can follow a wide variety of developments, partly related to the travels of early printers from the Rhine area to Italy and France. By extension, the private press movement initiated by William Morris and Emery Walker at the end of the nineteenth century in England, revived some of those typefaces before they were once more largely forgotten.

Rudolf Koch began drawing the Offenbach typeface in 1928, the first size was cut in 1931, and Koch made final corrections on his deathbed in 1934. The type was published from 6 to 60 pt posthumously by Gebr. Klingspor foundry in 1935. Stylistically, Offenbach is a hybrid, pairing wide roman capitals with narrow gothic minuscules, a mixture Koch had experienced in several of his typefaces like Jessen or Wallau. His student Hans Kühne had added to the Klingspor release the ‘German’ gothic capitals as alternative to the roman capitals. Offenbach is a faithful revival of Offenbach Mager, the initial thin weight, based on a one-week workshop in 2022 under the direction of Jérôme Knebusch. The students of the HfG Offenbach studied the archive material in the Klingspor Museum and lead type in the nearby printing workshop in the Bernardbau. The Offenbach typeface is freely usable by anyone, privately or professionally, under the Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 license. This licence allows free use of the font, provided that the type and author are mentioned when using it (Offenbach by Rudolf Koch) and that no modification is made to its design.

Nouveau Quellstift is the rounded variant of the Nouveau typeface. In theory, all sans serif types could have rounded versions. Here, it resonates particularly with the origins of Art Nouveau letters, which can be found in writing rather than in typography. The Quellstift, literally ‘source pen’, is a monolinear writing tool made of shaped cork. Rudolf von Larisch promoted its use through his artistic writing courses at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna and his influential 1905 book ‘Unterricht in ornamentaler Schrift’. This modern interpretation designed by Jérôme Knebusch has 36 styles: six weights ranging from thin to bold, and five sub-families arranged from the most quiet to the most expressive forms named after some influential flowers of the Art Nouveau mouvement: Crocus, Dahlia, Gingko, Nenuphar, Rose, Thistle. The Nouveau typeface was initially designed as an all-caps custom typeface for the École de Nancy, the art museum in France, with Philippe Tytgat.

Bilingual (French, German) supplement to Pangramme: learning type catalogue, published by ESAL Metz, published at the occasion of the traveling exhibition at Biennale de design graphique Chaumont and Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig in 2017 and 2018. Texts by Andrea Tinnes, Thomas Huot-Marchand, Sébastien Morlighem and Jérôme Knebusch. 15x26 cm, 16 pages pamphlet. Free PDF downloads (links below). More information about the exhibtion here.

Of the display typefaces Rudolf Koch designed, Neuland may have received the most use abroad. But how was it made? A 1922 letter Koch sent to Ernst Kellner provides more questions than answers, and designers have speculated for almost half a century about whether Koch really cut its punches without any preparation. Dan Reynolds’s essay reviews these textual sources, comparing them with surviving process material preserved in the Klingspor Museum and elsewhere. Written by Dan Reynolds and edited by Alice Savoie and Jérôme Knebusch in the Poem Pamphlet series.

The Musée d'Orsay is dedicated to artistic expression from the period 1848–1914. With an annual attendance of 3.5 million visitors, it stands as one of the world’s most prestigious cultural institutions. Its complete visual identity overhaul, undertaken by the Paris-based graphic design studio Zoo, offers a contemporary interpretation of the museum’s artistic legacy by establishing a clear, readable, and engaging visual language. As part of this redesign, an exclusive typeface was created in two styles. This typeface is a modern reinterpretation of the typographic developments of La Belle Époque, channeling the vitality of the era to which the Musée d'Orsay is devoted. The roman style presents a distilled interpretation of the 19th-century French Elzévir genre, while the italic revives the Coulée Italique Elzévirienne, originally cast by the Parisian foundry Beaudoire & Fils. The italic also features a set of swash capitals. Both styles were drawn by Rafael Ribas, with advisory, mastering, and production by Jérôme Knebusch. Some images are excerpted from the 2023/2024 program, where the typeface is paired with Antique Legacy.

Three lingual, 16 pages article about the genesis of the Instant typeface. Published in Typografische Monatsblätter / Revue Suisse de l'imprimerie / Swiss Typographic Magazine, N°6, 2012. Written by Jérôme Knebusch. Free PDF download on link below.