Akzidenz Grotesk Fonts

The H. Berthold AG type foundry initially released the Akzidenz Grotesk font in 1896 (under Accidenz Grotesk.) At first glance, the Akzidenz Grotesk font is often confused for the Helvetica or Univers fonts. Berthold announced the release of Akzidenz-Grotesk font in OpenType format, under the name Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro in May 2006.

Akzidenz Grotesk Fonts

Akzidenz Grotesk Fonts Packages

Akzidenz Grotesk Complete Font Family Pack
Akzidenz Grotesk Next Pro Font Family Pack
Akzidenz Grotesk Pro Complete Font Family Pack

Originally released by the H. Berthold AG type foundry in 1896 under the title Accidenz-Grotesk, the Akzidenz Grotesk font is a realist sans serif text.  The Akzidenz Grotesk font was the first sans serif typeface to be widely used and influenced many later neo-grotesque typefaces. Max Miedinger at the Haas Foundry based it as a model for the typeface Neue Haas Grotesk released in 1957, and renamed Helvetica in 1960. Miedinger sought to improve the font making it more even and unified.

Two other releases from 1957, Adrian Frutiger's Univers and Bauer and Baum's Folio, are influenced from Akzidenz-Grotesk.

The design of the Akzidenz-Grotesk font was believed to be based on the Walbaum or Didot fonts, as shown by the similar font metrics when the serifs are removed. However, the Akzidenz Grotesk font family also included fonts made by other foundries, such as the c. 1880 typeface Royal Grotesk Light from the Berlin foundry Ferdinand Theinhardt Schriftgiesserei, designed by Ferdinand Theinhardt for the scientific publications of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. He also supplied the regular, medium and bold weights of the typeface.

While Hermann Berthold took over Theinhardt's Berlin foundry in 1908, it wasn't until the fall of the Prussian monarchy in 1918 that Royal Grotesk was released as part of the Akzidenz-Grotesk font family and later renamed Akzidenz-Grotesk Condensed.

Contemporary versions of the Akzidenz-Grotesk font originate from a late-1950s project, directed by Günter Gerhard Lange at Berthold, to enlarge the Akzidenz Grotesk font family, adding a larger character set, but keeping all of the characteristics of the 1898 typeface. Under the direction of Günter Gerhard Lange, he had designed 33 font styles to the Akzidenz-Grotesk font family, including AG Extra (1958), AG Extra Bold (1966) and AG Super (1968), AG Super Italic (2001) and Extra Bold italic (2001).

In May 2006, Berthold announced the release of Akzidenz Grotesk font in OpenType format, under the name Akzidenz Grotesk Pro. The Pro family offers extended language support for Central European, Baltic and Turkish as well as Welsh, archaic Danish and Esperanto and is available in CFF PostScript OpenType. Berthold also released Akzidenz-Grotesk Standard, which includes glyphs of Western European character set, in both PostScript and TrueType flavored OpenType.

In May 2007 Berthold announced the release of Akzidenz Grotesk Pro+ font, which includes Cyrillic and Greek characters.