Munchenstein Slab

Over the five decades of his career, Swiss type designer Max Miedinger designed just three typefaces. His second design was a phenomenal success: Neue Haas Grotesk (1957) – renamed Helvetica in 1960. There was no such success for his first (Pro Arte, 1954) and third typefaces (Horizontal, 1965), which have been largely forgotten over the course of history. Nikola Djurek’s interest in these forgotten typefaces was sparked by their distinct, wide forms, which to him offered potential beyond their original single-style, capitals-only version. The new Münchenstein font family resurrects a forgotten design history while bringing the design into the modern age, honouring the work of Max Miedinger and the Haas Foundry.

The geometric, boxy letters of Münchenstein have a striking presence, more radical than Eurostile (1962) yet without ever having enjoyed Eurostile’s popularity. In fact, Miedinger designed Horizontal because ‘progressive graphic designers’ wanted ‘an extra-wide modern Grotesk titling face’ that they could combine with a variety of other serif and sans serif text faces. These wide typefaces with super-elliptical forms evoke the architecture and technology of the 1960s. The rounded rectangle aesthetics are a forward-looking and optimistic expression of a time that brought immense cultural change and embraced progressive idealism.

Djurek has created three families of fonts that complete each other, and that can play a leading role in any expressive piece of design while also supporting layouts in smaller sizes. Münchenstein Display is a wide and boxy titling typeface intended for large text sizes; Münchenstein Text is a precise, geometric typeface that is suitable for small text; and Münchenstein Slab is a quirky, narrow slab serif with inverted stroke contrast that works best when generously tracked out.

Münchenstein (named after the place where the Haas Type Foundry was based) comes not only with static OpenType fonts, but also with variable versions, whereby the weight and forward and backward slants can be controlled. In addition to the conventional format, Münchenstein Slab also comes in a colour-font format, which randomly cycles through a range of vivid colours for each of its characters. To take advantage of these additional versions, you will need to use applications that support colour and variable fonts.

Printed type specimen of Münchenstein presents the background story of the typeface written by Indra Kupferschmid, in a two part specimen designed by Atelier Carvalho Bernau, and showcases this new typefaces. Get a copy here.