Peter Behrens’ renowned art nouveau type from 1902 – with ornaments. Newly revised and neatly digitalized by Ingo Zimmermann

In 1902, Peter Behrens (1869–1940), architect, designer and typographer, created a new ”German“ type which became very successful very quickly for the Rudhard’sche Gießerei (foundry which later became Gebr. Klingspor AG) in Offenbach am Main. It served, for example, as the official German type for the world expositions in 1904 and 1910.

Behrens himself writes about the development of this type ”...For the actual form of my type, I took the technical principle of the Gothic script, the stroke of the quill feather. The proportions of height and width and the boldness of the strokes of the Gothic letters were also decisive for me in producing a German character. A cohesive character could be hoped for by avoiding all non-necessities and by strictly carrying out the design principle of holding the quill at an angle…“

By the way, when “long s” is activated, the typographically correct “round s” is automatically placed at the end of the word so that you need only pay attention to the correct s on syllable endings within words.
When using “long s,” you must ensure the correct use of the rules for the Fraktur font: “round s” is always at the end of the word, also in compound words. For those of you who want to be even more correct, read the corresponding article in Wikipedia.

Peter Behrens also drew matching ornaments for his typeface – we have likewise carefully revised these decorative touches and arranged them into a font.