From For the Hearts

Is there such a thing as Danish typedesign? Well, yes there is. Even though it is generally not know outside of the narrow circles of typographic connoisseurs and Danish architects, it does exist. Historically Danish typography has followed the German traditions of blackletter typography. Post WWI a small group of Danish architects started their own modernist movement. It was warmer, rounder and more humanistic than the southern movements. Today it is referred to as the Danish humanist-modernist movement. Architects as Knud V. Engelhardt and Gunnar Biilmann Petersen were the forerunners, and both ventured into typedesign to complement their architecture, product- and industrial design as well as graphical works.

The move away from the blackletter style, initiated in 1875, was finally completed around the turn of the century, when instead latin and grotesque type were ultimately victorious. In the aftermath of the WWII, many efforts were made to distance Denmark from German influences. The spelling reform of 1948 did away with the German-style capitalization of nouns, and introduced the æ, ø, and å characters.

With the advent of digital type founding came about a renaissance in typedesign around the world. Some feeling of protectionism towards the heritage of local culture is inherent in the Danish mind-set, as I would suppose it is in most smaller languages, and this lead to a revival movement of the few preceding Danish efforts in Latin typedesign. Another reason for this trend was the over-saturation of ‘Swiss Style’ in the seventies and eighties. Helvetica was used by everyone for everything and the weight of it’s success had crushed upon it. Designers wanted out of the cold non-descript associations that the ‘Swiss Style’ imposed.

By the nineties the ability to produce and apply digital typefaces, and the vacancy left by the move away from Helvetica came together with the desire to create new typefaces with distinct Danish roots. In 1997 Danish design agency Kontrapunkt designed the new typeface ‘Via’ for the Danish State Railways to replace the previous ‘British Rail’ typeface who looks like Helvetica Bold. Drawing heavily from the designs of Knud V. Engelhardt and Gunnar Biilmann Petersen, it added a very contemporary flair to it. Other Danish contemporary typedesigners have used these sources as inspiration for their own successful designs, such as Ole Søndergård’s FF Signa, and Morten Olsen’s FF Max.

I'm currently in the process of drawing a typeface rooted in this tradition. It's to be used in my Wikiography map project. It is called Kulby.