Albertus (typeface)

Monotype Albertus

Category	Serif
Classification	Glyphic
Designer(s)	Berthold Wolpe
Commissioned by	Stanley Morison
Foundry	Monotype Corporation
Date created	1932

Albertus used in a coat of arms.

Albertus is a glyphic, serif typeface designed by Berthold Wolpe in the period 1932 to 1940 for the Monotype Corporation type foundry. Wolpe named the font after Albertus Magnus, the thirteenth-century German philosopher and theologian.

Wolpe studied as a metal engraver, and Albertus was modeled to resemble letters carved into bronze. The face began as titling capitals. Eventually a lowercase roman was added, and later an italic, which is distinct for its narrow character set. Albertus has slight glyphic serifs. It is available in titling, bold and italic varieties. The Cyrillic glyphs have been added. The font has Kerning Pairs, so you have to check Kerning in FontCreator.

The project began in 1932. Titling caps were released first, in 1932, followed by a roman upper and lowercase in 1940 with light and bold weights following later.

Characteristics

• In the uppercase M the middle strokes descend only partway, not reaching the baseline.
• The uppercase U has a stem on the right side, evocative of lowercase.
• The lowercase e and g have large, open bowls.
• Figures are lining.

Cold Type copies

Albertus' popularity and usefulness continued right through the cold type era and was made available for photocomposition by Monotype and perhaps other vendors as well.

Digital Type copies

Monotype licences Albertus to Linotype which has released a digital version.

Use

• A slightly modified version was used extensively in The Prisoner, a 1967 British television series frequently mined for cultural references. Modifications to the Albertus font include opening the loop on the lowercase e and the addition of new dotless i and j characters. The typeface was also used for a role playing game supplement based on the TV show, published by Steve Jackson Games.
• Albertus was, for many years, the typeface used on English coinage.^{[citation needed]}
• Albertus is used for the street name signs in the City of London, City of London Corporation and London Borough of Lambeth.
• Albertus has frequently been used by the band Coldplay. The font was for instance used on the covers of Parachutes, A Rush of Blood to the Head, X&Y, Live 2003, associated singles and also for the Christmas Lights single cover.
• Albertus is used for the cover of Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg.
• Albertus is used for the logo, titles and credits of the British TV crime drama, Scott & Bailey, screened from May 2011 on ITV1.
• Nearly all of John Carpenter's films begin and end with white-on-black credits, set in the Albertus typeface, without any scrolling.
• The Buffy the Vampire Slayer board game.
• The 2011 videogame, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.
• The lettering on the cover of Rank by The Smiths is set in Albertus Bold.
• The movie Dune uses an altered version of Albertus. The differences are that the D is extended, the U has lost it’s stem and the middle prong of the E is different.

See also

• Carter Sans (2011), influenced by Albertus

References

• Blackwell, Lewis. 20th Century Type. Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0-300-10073-6.
• Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
• Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopædia of Type Faces. Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983. ISBN 0-7137-1347-X.
• Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.
• Williams, Owen Berthold Wolpe and His Typeface Albertus Letter Arts Review, Vol 20 No 1, 2006

External links

• Albertus Pro
• Albertus at Monotype
• Albertus Font Family - by Berthold Wolpe