Be warned: This article will run rough-shod over typographic history

Although Berlin Sans is a new, modern and digital face, it is a re-imagining of a much earlier design, Negro, by a German emigré to New York, Lucian Bernhard. As a form of shorthand, and to reflect the modern availability of Berlin Sans, this article will run rough-shod over typographic history by describing the biographical details of Negro’s designer, as the progenitor of the modern font, whose details will in turn be discussed. It is after all, due to Lucian Bernhard that the font ever came about. It will also refer to both fonts as Berlin Sans as the glyph shapes are so alike. Once again, this is due to the fact that to purchase the font for digital use, you would be seeking Berlin Sans.

Equally so, in discussing Lucian Bernhard, The Inquisition does not mean to belittle David Berlow’s work on this beautiful font. Simply put, the genus for this lettering can be traced back to Bernhard’s design output and its lettering forms. That is the story to be told.

Please Note

Other early twentieth century German printers’ jobbing fonts have been digitised. See Erik Spiekermann’s Berliner Grotesk as an alternative, with perhaps more personality but less flexibility.

Lucian Bernhard's very stylish, stacked signature

Lucian Bernhard, Type Designer

Lucian Bernhard (1883 – 1972) was a self-taught graphic artist, painter, type- and industrial-designer. He was born as Emil Kahn. Throughout his life he disliked speaking of the past, even to his children, meaning there is much speculation about his exact biographical details. It seems the most plausible reasons for the name change was either a reaction against his father or a prescient move in the face of growing anti-semitism in Germany.

During the First World War Bernhard worked for the German government in the production of propagandistic artworks.

Lucian Bernhard's winning Priester poster

Bernhard’s breakthrough moment came when he entered a competition to design a promotion for Priester matches. The money offered was very little, but times were tight and he had a name to make for himself. In the end he won not just the competition but also ongoing work from the marketing company who oversaw the competition.

Bernhard’s initial Priester design was a complex Jugendstil piece; Germany’s take on Art Nouveau, and the bleeding edge style of the time. At a friend’s suggestion he started to simplify the over-wrought work, initiating a process he knew as “addition by subtraction”.

The judges decided that the final work, a gaudily coloured writing of the company name and two accompanying twigs of matches was heinous. They threw it in the bin and moved on. Luckily for Bernhard, and indeed twentieth century design more generally, one of the executives from the marketing firm who was sent to oversee the competition saw the binning taking place. He rushed over, retrieved the artwork and admonished the judges by proclaiming the winner to be found. While many thought this simple poster too stark, too modern, the executive’s vision changed German design.

The Priester story was later told by Bernhard himself, so it may well be apocryphal.

Lucian Bernhard's Informative Functionalist poster for Adler Typewriters

Lucian Bernhard's Informative Functionalist poster for Bosch Sparkplugs

Lucian Bernhard's Informative Functionalist poster for Ranniger Gloves

Lucian Bernhard's Informative Functionalist poster for Stiller Shoes

The train of his career was set in motion. This style became known as Informative Functionalism. The artworks became known as Sachplakat or “object-posters”. The influence of the orient, and in particular the iconic simplified and refined forms of Japanese woodcuts, is plain to see. The product was illustrated to look desirable and the message was a simple word association between the producer’s name and the aspirational image. This is a very similar conceptual approach to Apple’s today.

The new style became synonymous with Bernhard. His stylish, stacked logo can be seen inscribed on many of the posters. These were early days for the graphic design profession. Being relatively novel the producers could sign their work like fine artists.

The adoption of Informative Functionalism was echoed in the prevalence of Bernhard’s direct artful hand-lettering style throughout German design of the time. Foundries clamoured for these robust faces and a new career avenue opened for the designer. He went on to create an extensive list of diverse typeface designs:

• Bernhard Antiqua, 1911
• Bernhard Fraktur, 1912-22
• Bernhard Privat, 1919
• Bernhard Schonschrift, 1925-28
• Bernhard Handschrift, 1928
• Bernhard Fashion, 1929
• Bernhard Gothic, 1929-31
• Bernhard Negro, 1930
• Bernhard Lilli, 1930
• Bernhard Lucian, 1930
• Bernhard Tango, 1933
• Bernhard Moderna, 1933-38

A selection of fonts by Lucian Bernhard

In 1932 Bernhard upped sticks and moved to a USA that was not ready for him. His work was not well-received in a reprise of the German reticence from the early days of his career, it was felt to be too extreme, too harsh, in essence too modern. He began to move toward fine art. His paintings were very similar to Edward Hopper’s as he reacted to his new American life.

Catnap - painting by Lucian Bernhard

On the next page – the typeface’s origins and typographic details

Original content created by: The Inquisition

The defendant - John T Scopes

The Scopes Trial may be well known in the United States, where it is a source of pride and frustration for both sides of the evolution debate. Here in Old Europe™ the trial is relatively unheard of.

Really, Are People Still Arguing Over Evolution?

Evolution is still most often referred to as a theory. It is a sad fact, but evolution remains, in some parts, an unaccepted and (incredulously) a contentious issue. School authorities are constantly in conflict on its teaching or non-teaching.

The Inquisition is writing this in Ireland, a predominantly Catholic country in the scorned depths of Old Europe™. The debate is not all that heated here as the Vatican has long ago accepted evolution. This is not exactly evidence of the church’s willingness to accept new ideas – the theory has been proven in so many ways that denying it would be reactionary, overly dogmatic and leave them liable to look uninformed.

These are not issues for lots of people. They have their revered books and fantasies that were written before the growth of our knowledge in the natural sciences. They obsequiously follow these books – literally and obediently ignore, fight against and deny anything these holy books do not discuss or accept. Some will legislate against ideas they find dangerous; ideas like life not being a static concept, ideas like adaptation.

Darwin lampooned - the traditional misunderstanding of Darwinism

Setting the Scene – Tennessee

The University of Missouri-Kansas City does a great job of framing the pre-Scopes Trial situation in Tennessee. People were nervous. The old certainties were gone. Nineteenth century values had been violently destroyed by the First World War. Although Tennessee was the only state to nominally end slavery in 1861 by popular vote, the folk memory lasted and the divisions remained. New worlds and new ideas of modernism, prohibition and the opulent Jazz Age were threatening. The media focus on the Trial in Dayton, Tennessee would emphasise the struggle between old and new ideas. Evoultion, although an old idea already by that stage, would be that polarising concept, the spark that would hit the kindling.

The Butler Act

In 1925 the people of Tennessee lost any ability they previously had to think for themselves (it should be pointed out that Tennessee had the eighth highest number of white-on-black lynchings by state, so individual, informed and independent thought was clearly not considered a priority). The state enacted the Butler Act. This law technically prohibited public school teachers from denying the Biblical account of man’s origin. In action at the coalface of education however, it prevented any teaching of evolution at all. It did this by specifically prohibiting the teaching of the idea that man’s origins lie in what it referred to as lower orders of animals.

John Washington Butler had pursued the law’s enactment at the suggestion of William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic presidential hopeful. Jennings Bryan pushed for the legislation in fifteen states and was referred to by the press as a ‘fundamentalist pope”.

The Plan

George Rappalyea was a New Yorker who brought newfangled ideas to the tiny rural hamlet of Dayton. The American Civil Liberties Union had called on teachers to oppose the new anti-evolution legislation. On the back of this, Rappalyea urged the part-time science teacher John Scopes to take up the challenge to gain publicity for their small town. They would announce Scopes’ teaching plan, and its inclusion of evolution, forcing the state to intervene. They prepared by selecting high profile lawyers who wished to take on the case, again in the interests of publicity.

The Defence were formed by;

• John Neal, a law school dean from Knoxville
• Clarence Darrow, a septuagenarian agnostic legal-eagle
• Arthur Garfield Hays, a free speech advocate
• Dudley Field Malone, a divorce attorney

The Prosecution comprised;

• William Jennings Bryan
• A.T. Stewart, East Tennessee’s Attorney General
• Ben B McKenzie, the previous AG
• William Jennings Bryan Jr., Jennings Bryan’s son and a federal prosecutor

The judge’s credentials were plain; Judge Raulston was a conservative Christian.

The tiny town celebrated the day the trial opened. They were delighted that the whole country’s, if not the world’s, focus was on them. The town had a population of 1,800. The courthouse held 1,000 people on the opening day.

Overview of the trial. Judge Raulston and William Jennings Bryan are clearly visible

The Trial

The farcical trial which was painted in the news media as a battle for humanity between good and evil, opened with a masterstroke in subterfuge. 11 of the twelve farmers on the jury were regular churchgoers. After an initial prayer in a secular court, the trial was adjourned for the weekend. The congregation of the local Methodist church found itself being addressed the next morning by William Jennings Bryan. The judge was there too, having a good ole listen, and putting any qualms about his impartiality firmly to bed.

And so it was to continue in this manner.

The prosecution introduced the King James Bible’s Book of Genesis to the court. They then had witnesses confirm that John Scopes had, sin of sins, taught evolution. They rested after another witness announced he had heard Scopes stating he would break the law by doing so.

The defence had initially adopted the strategy of having the indictment quashed, hoping a higher court would rule the banning of teaching evolution to be unconstitutional. Unsurprisingly Judge Raulston wasn’t going to play ball and refused. In riposte to the introduction of Biblical texts they called a zoologist as an expert witness. Dr. Maynard Metcalf described evolutionary theory, as it was understood at the time. The legal teams launched subsequent broadsides at each other. Dudley Malone accused the prosecution of taking a standpoint founded in ignorance. It didn’t matter – the following day the ruling judge struck the zoologist’s testimony off the register. He then ruled the court was too full and moved the hearing outside the courthouse.

Clarence Darrow on the left, William Jennings Bryan on the right.

After seven days of back-and-forth farce the defence called the primary prosecutor, William Jennings Bryan, as an expert witness on the Bible, in an audacious move which the New York Times declared to be “the most amazing court scene in Anglo-Saxon history.” The defence lampooned Jennings Bryan’s literal interpretations of the Bible based on stories that were, and are, logically impossible – Jonah and the whale, Joshua making the sun stand still and so on. Darrow examined him and badgered him so much that once again the judge had to rule that the inconvenient evidence be removed from the register. The press reported it as a victory for Darrow, nonetheless.

Endgame and Aftermath

The case was hopeless, Scopes was convicted as requested by his defence. Tennessee law specified that following this request the case could be appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Six days later William Jennings Bryan died after eating a sandwich. One year later the Supreme Court reversed the decision on a technicality.

Unfortunately it seems religious dogmatism is winning the longer game. Only 39% of american adults believe in evolution. Extrapolating these figures, we learn that 61% of americans are idiots.

The pick of the curmudgeonly, troglodyte bunch is Northern Ireland where their health minister is, in his own words, “ a young earth creationist and an opponent of the theory of evolution.”

Bibliography
NPR’s fantastic timeline of events around the controversy
The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s piece on the trial is clear and readable
Belief in evolution across Europe
Pathé News Coverage of the Trial
A site devoted to the evolution/anti-evolution debate discussing the Trial – Antievolution.org
Wikipedia’s take on it all

Original content created by: The Inquisition