Download Gradl Zierschriften Font Family

Download Gradl Zierschriften Font Family

Here is another design by jewelry designer Max Joseph Gradl.

Zier is a verb, meaning to decorate, adorn or ornament; zierlich means decorative, elegant, fine, neat. Schrift means type. Zierschrift, therefore, means decorative type. Gradl Zierschriften is a decorative type in the Art Nouveau style, rather than the more ornate Victorian style. Very modern, very young, with an elegant simplicity of form. More…

Maria Makela, in her book The Munich Secession (Princeton 1990) suggests that the frequent use of simple, flowing, organic forms that was so characteristic of Art Nouveau was a reaction against the growing complexity and rapid urbanization that resulted from 19th century industrialization.

In keeping with that reaction is the hand-drawn quality that intentionally rejects a mechanistic mathematic precision of line rendering. Gradl Zierschriften preserves that hand-drawn quality. Designed with upper case only, this face was obviously intended for short headlines only and is best set at 18 points or larger. However, I don't think you really get to experience the grace of this design until you get to 36 points or more. In the larger sizes, it is simply stunning.

Please note that while most of the uppercase letterforms are repeated in the lower case for convenience, the ‘F’,‘L’ and ‘T’ are rendered a little narrower than in the uppercase to provide for visual variety.

The font also includes a generous supply of ligatures for just the right fit ... and just for the fun of using them. Three common ways of inserting a ligature, accented letter or other special character are:

1) Key in “ALT”+“0”+[ascii #]; for example ALT+0233 for the e-acute,

2) From within your application program, go to the INSERT menu and look for something like “Insert Symbol,” (this function is NOT available in all application programs) &

3) Cut & Paste from the CHARACTER MAP display that has been supplied by every generation of Windows Operating System that I can recall (All Programs>Accessories>System Tools).

Isn't it amazing what you can do? Don't be afraid to experiment. If you back up your work, you have very little to lose and a lot to gain. Not only do you acquire a new tool, but by the very process you have learned how to continually expand your knowledge and skill base.

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Download Gradl Initialen ML Font Family

Download Gradl Initialen ML Font Family

Max Joseph Gradl designed Art Nouveau jewelry in Germany. At least some of his designs were produced by Theodor Fahrner of Pforzheim, Germany -- one of the leading manufacturers of fine art jewelry on the Continent from 1855 to 1979.

I don't know if he designed for Fahrner exclusively, but every example I found was produced by that firm. I assume it was also the same M.J, who edited a book, Authentic Art Nouveau Stained Glass which was reissued by Dover and is still available.

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For an artist as accomplished as Gradl was, he is very tough to research. There just does not seem to have been much written about him. The jeweler is visible in most of his typeface designs.

They exhibit a sculptural quality as if they were modeled in clay (or gold) rather than drawn on paper. His monograms, especially, reflect that quality. Those shown in plates 112 through 116 in Petzendorfer actually appear to have been designed specifically for fabricating in the form of gold or silver pendents.

Of the initial letters that came out of Germany during this period, these by Gradl seem unusually open and lyrical. They seem to be dancing on the page, rather than sitting. Please note that Gradl designed only the decorated initials.

All other characters supplied were extrapolated by HiH, including the accented initials. Orn.1 (unicode E004) is based on a jeweled gold clasp designed by Gradl (please check out Gallery Image on Myfonts.com).

Also included are an art nouveau girl’s face, a swan and the face from Munch’s “Scream”, from scans of old printer’s ornaments.

Gradl Initialen M represents a major extension of the original release, with the following changes:

1.

Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Added glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode codepoints, some in Private Use area.

Total of 341 glyphs. Both upper & lower case provided with appropriate accents.

2. 558 Kerning Pairs.

3. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: salt, dlig, ornm and kern.

4.

Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing.

5. Refined various glyph outlines.

6. Alternative characters: 16 upper case letters (with gaps in surrounding decorations for accents above letter).

8.

Four Ornaments: face1, face2, swan and orn1 (silhouette of Gradl clasp)

The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format.

Use whichever works best for your applications.

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