Städte-Reklame ad (1934)

This ad for Deutsche Städte-Reklame GmbH was included in the September 1934 issue of Gebrauchsgraphik, a German journal for the graphic arts and printing trade.

Deutsche Städte-Reklame GmbH (“German City Advertising Ltd.”) was founded in 1922. It later was renamed to Deutsche Städte-Medien GmbH (DSM). In 2003, 28 German cities held shares in the company, with Frankfurt (ca. 26%) and Munich (ca. 20%) being the major shareholders. The national market leader in outdoor advertising was acquired by Ströer Media in 2004.

Apart from the Städte-Reklame logo in the form of a city’s arms, the ad is exclusively typographic. It features two typefaces by Rudolf Koch, the influential German calligrapher, teacher and type designer who had died on 9 April 1934. One is Holla (1932), a script typeface derived from the artist’s handwriting – or at least the specimen cover suggests as much. It comes with swash caps and dynamic underscores, both of which are shown here. The other is Wallau halbfett (1930), which pairs a rotunda-like lowercase with “unzial” capitals. Wallau was later amended with a second set of “deutsch”, i.e. blackletter capitals. Both typefaces are used with ligatures for ch/ck and tz, as it was common in Germany at the time. Only Wallau features an ſ (long s).

The typefaces are credited at the bottom, indicating that this ad may have been designed and co-paid by the Klingspor foundry.