5 ms·

Berlin TYPE: The official type for the city of Berlin (2020)

153 points by histories 3y ago

Someone 3y ago
FTA: “The regular and bold weights are available to all and can be downloaded for free from the campaign website: wir.berlin.” (URL: https://wir.berlin/kampagnen/die-typo https://wir.berlin/kampagnen/die-typo)
- jkaplowitz 3y ago
  Neat. Have you been able to find what license terms apply to these fonts, for people who want to use them?
  - histories 3y ago
    I can only find: "... is freely available and usable for everyone. However, modification of the fonts is not permitted."
pyrale 3y ago
As a typechecking enthusiast, this title was extremely confusing. I guess it's a good reminder of how our brains routinely jump to premature conclusions as part of their specialization.
- rob74 3y ago
  Elsewhere on the site, they also write "we created a complex type system for the Liebherr Group"...
- worldsayshi 3y ago
  Yeah I expected a schema that could describe everything you could find in Berlin which would be quite interesting.
thiago_fm 3y ago
I love the different font styles being used in the subway stations, there's a wide range of them, with each telling a story from a different time. As a Berliner, I probably have taken 100s of pictures of them or, in front of them, shared many moments on those stations. They are a core aspect of the city for me, representing change and, at the same time, the past.
- marton78 3y ago
  It's most fitting how the messed up kerning in one of the newly renovated stations, Mehringdamm, conveys the slow decline of this country once striving for excellence.
- boffinAudio 3y ago
  I feel the same here in Vienna, which has so much fascinating typography in the streets, its really quite inspiring. I've long wanted to do some kind of google-streetmaps style photography project, taking pictures of all the types to be found in the nooks and cranny of the city, some of which go back centuries. I'd imagine having such a collection of Vienna City Types would be quite interesting to throw at some AI and produce real working fonts. For typography nerds, cities such as Vienna and Berlin offer so much inspiration, although I would wager the distribution and density is better in Vienna, than Berlin - due simply to the fact that Berlin has a lot more space than Vienna does.
  - ginko 3y ago
    >I've long wanted to do some kind of google-streetmaps style photography project, taking pictures of all the types to be found in the nooks and cranny of the city, some of which go back centuries. I'd imagine having such a collection of Vienna City Types would be quite interesting to throw at some AI and produce real working fonts. FYI there's this: https://www.geschaeftemitgeschichte.at/product/spurensuche-2018-geschaeftsportale-in-wien-beobachtungen-urbaner-veraenderung-2-auflage/ https://www.geschaeftemitgeschichte.at/product/spurensuche-2... https://www.geschaeftemitgeschichte.at/product/spurensuche-2023-geschaeftsportale-in-wien-beobachtungen-urbaner-veraenderung/ https://www.geschaeftemitgeschichte.at/product/spurensuche-2...
ttrrooppeerr 3y ago
Somehow related(?) but when I was in Berlin I noticed all buildings have a white square with a black number for the building number. This is consistent across most (all?) parts of the town but no local was able to explain me why or what's the background of that. Something like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.5309649,13.4099152,3a,15y,52.08h,95.1t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sk66b7u3jCYYDV4VDzDO9Gg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@52.5309649,13.4099152,3a,15y,52... Anyone knows what's the name of the font (on topic!) and any backstory on those?
- rob74 3y ago
  Not sure about Berlin specifically, but many (most?) larger German cities have rules about how the house numbers should look like - after all, Germans love rules and regulations! And this is actually helpful, as it's much easier to find the house number on a house if they have a consistent look. IMHO the Munich house numbers are better than the Berlin ones, as they also include the street name and (most of the time) an arrow pointing out the numbering direction (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:House_numbers_in_Munich https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:House_numbers_in...). Not sure what that font is called either though...
  - hnbad 3y ago
    > many (most?) larger German cities I guess those qualifiers cancel each other out? Anyway. Berlin is twice as big as the second biggest city, Hamburg. Munich is the third largest city: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cities/germany https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cities/germany We've gone over Berlin and Munich, here's Hamburg: https://www.hamburg.de/contentblob/153026/31a1e4447ce01eb4b8fd6a29a8ff6ad4/data/bpd-hausnummern.pdf https://www.hamburg.de/contentblob/153026/31a1e4447ce01eb4b8... - must be placed at least 180 cm above ground, near the entrance or on the side facing a public road - if the building is too far away from a public road for the number to be recognizable, it must be placed at the entrance of the premises, no lower than 90 cm above ground - it must be made out of a material that can withstand weathering and provides good visibility of its shape and color - for certain buildings (office buildings?) the numbers must be illuminated to be visible in low light conditions Here's #4 on the list, Cologne: https://www.stadt-koeln.de/service/produkte/00930/index.html https://www.stadt-koeln.de/service/produkte/00930/index.html - it must use "arabic numerals" (i.e. not Roman numerals) which must be at least 8.5cm high - it must be visible and legible from a public road Frankfurt am Main (#5) does not seem to specify any requirements and thus defers to Hesse, which doesn't seem to specify any requirements either. https://frankfurt.de/themen/planen-bauen-und-wohnen/planen/strassenbenennung/hausnummerierung https://frankfurt.de/themen/planen-bauen-und-wohnen/planen/s... I'm not going to go over the rest of the list as the lesson seems clear: some cities/municipalities have strict regulations, some barely have any, size doesn't really seem to be a deciding factor.
tomsmeding 3y ago
The "Language support" block features text in Latin, Cyrillic (Кириллицу) and Greek (normally Ελληνικά), but the text says Ελληυικά with an υ (upsilon, pronounced "i") instead of a ν (nu, pronounced "n"). Strange place to have a typo!
- Klaster_1 3y ago
  Second this, I also noticed the typo in Greek. The Cyrillic reads weird too, it's in accusative case instead of nominative I'd expect.
paol 3y ago
Does it have an ampelmann glyph? If not I call fake.
omega3 3y ago
I feel that compared to the beautiful examples of train station lettering this looks very generic.
formerly_proven 3y ago
I generally dislike these "corporate design" typefaces, because - just like this one - the character set is usually quite small and they're almost never a complete set of styles and cuts - just like this one is just two styles, regular and bold. No italics, for example. Nevermind things like self-declared companies who lack a mono-space font in their corporate design suite (strangely enough they never lack a dedicated Powerpoint headline font).
redder23 3y ago
Let me guess, massive amounts of taxpayers money was paid to them to create this font, that they do not even open source and allow no modifications and such. Also, the font looks pretty generic and nothing special or unique. I do not see much value here, there are probably 100 fonts that look pretty similar to this.
- wizerdrobe 3y ago
  While I understand the need or desire of a capital city like Berlin to have “good design” and advertise, i.e. “I <3 NY” a font seems deep in the rabbit hole. Is there much prior example of other metropolis making this deep of a design choice on small details like a custom font?
  - Mashimo 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39522893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39522893
- _cenw 3y ago
  Jung von Matt is definitely one of the most prestigious advertising agencies in the country, it not the most.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    Never heard of them.
    - bowsamic 3y ago
      If you had heard of them they wouldn't be doing their job right
    - hnbad 3y ago
      Most consumers haven't. Most advertising agencies have. Some campaigns German consumers would be aware of: - Saturn, "Geiz ist geil" - Edeka, "Supergeil" - Sparkasse, "08/15 Bank" (very beige board meetings) - Bild, "Bild dir deine Meinung" Basically if you've seen any catchy ad campaign on German television in the past thirty years it was probably made by them. You don't have to like their work or think that it's good but they've been extremely successful and so have been many of their campaigns.
l3x 3y ago
Related - a previous HN thread about Sweden Sans [1] that links to: * Finlandica font for Finland [2] * Public Sans for USA public sector [3] * Mariane and Spectral for France [4] ... among others! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36775398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36775398 [2] https://toolbox.finland.fi/brand-identity-and-guidelines/finlandica-font/ https://toolbox.finland.fi/brand-identity-and-guidelines/fin... [3] https://public-sans.digital.gov/ https://public-sans.digital.gov/ [4] https://www.systeme-de-design.gouv.fr/elements-d-interface/fondamentaux-de-l-identite-de-l-etat/typographie/ https://www.systeme-de-design.gouv.fr/elements-d-interface/f...
ggrelet 3y ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parisine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parisine
SushiHippie 3y ago
(2020)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
55555 3y ago
If you went through letters the way Germans do, you'd need your own font too.
NeoTar 3y ago
It's a shame they don't list ö, ä and ü (or ß) in their alphabet (although to be fair they are listed in the full list of glyphs) - those are pretty fundamental to . I kinda like how they're done in the sign for Möckernbrücke - they also seem like an afterthought, desperately added in whatever space was avaliable! See https://www.dreamstime.com/metro-train-station-sign-m%C3%B6ckernbr%C3%BCcke-mockernbrucke-berlin-germany-march-image142132453 https://www.dreamstime.com/metro-train-station-sign-m%C3%B6c... (apologies for the awful, watermarked photo).
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  At least it comes out better than that stock image website's rendition: "MÃ¶ckernbrÃ¼cke"!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
amai 3y ago
What happend with the font since 2020? Did it get used anywhere?
amai 3y ago
See also https://neuedin.com/ https://neuedin.com/

153 points by histories 3y ago

FTA: “The regular and bold weights are available to all and can be downloaded for free from the campaign website: wir.berlin.” (URL: https://wir.berlin/kampagnen/die-typo https://wir.berlin/kampagnen/die-typo)

jkaplowitz 3y ago
Neat. Have you been able to find what license terms apply to these fonts, for people who want to use them?
- histories 3y ago
  I can only find: "... is freely available and usable for everyone. However, modification of the fonts is not permitted."

pyrale 3y ago

As a typechecking enthusiast, this title was extremely confusing. I guess it's a good reminder of how our brains routinely jump to premature conclusions as part of their specialization.

rob74 3y ago
Elsewhere on the site, they also write "we created a complex type system for the Liebherr Group"...
worldsayshi 3y ago
Yeah I expected a schema that could describe everything you could find in Berlin which would be quite interesting.

thiago_fm 3y ago

I love the different font styles being used in the subway stations, there's a wide range of them, with each telling a story from a different time. As a Berliner, I probably have taken 100s of pictures of them or, in front of them, shared many moments on those stations. They are a core aspect of the city for me, representing change and, at the same time, the past.

marton78 3y ago
It's most fitting how the messed up kerning in one of the newly renovated stations, Mehringdamm, conveys the slow decline of this country once striving for excellence.
boffinAudio 3y ago
I feel the same here in Vienna, which has so much fascinating typography in the streets, its really quite inspiring. I've long wanted to do some kind of google-streetmaps style photography project, taking pictures of all the types to be found in the nooks and cranny of the city, some of which go back centuries. I'd imagine having such a collection of Vienna City Types would be quite interesting to throw at some AI and produce real working fonts. For typography nerds, cities such as Vienna and Berlin offer so much inspiration, although I would wager the distribution and density is better in Vienna, than Berlin - due simply to the fact that Berlin has a lot more space than Vienna does.
- ginko 3y ago
  >I've long wanted to do some kind of google-streetmaps style photography project, taking pictures of all the types to be found in the nooks and cranny of the city, some of which go back centuries. I'd imagine having such a collection of Vienna City Types would be quite interesting to throw at some AI and produce real working fonts. FYI there's this: https://www.geschaeftemitgeschichte.at/product/spurensuche-2018-geschaeftsportale-in-wien-beobachtungen-urbaner-veraenderung-2-auflage/ https://www.geschaeftemitgeschichte.at/product/spurensuche-2... https://www.geschaeftemitgeschichte.at/product/spurensuche-2023-geschaeftsportale-in-wien-beobachtungen-urbaner-veraenderung/ https://www.geschaeftemitgeschichte.at/product/spurensuche-2...

ttrrooppeerr 3y ago

Somehow related(?) but when I was in Berlin I noticed all buildings have a white square with a black number for the building number. This is consistent across most (all?) parts of the town but no local was able to explain me why or what's the background of that. Something like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@52.5309649,13.4099152,3a,15y,52.08h,95.1t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sk66b7u3jCYYDV4VDzDO9Gg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@52.5309649,13.4099152,3a,15y,52... Anyone knows what's the name of the font (on topic!) and any backstory on those?

rob74 3y ago
Not sure about Berlin specifically, but many (most?) larger German cities have rules about how the house numbers should look like - after all, Germans love rules and regulations! And this is actually helpful, as it's much easier to find the house number on a house if they have a consistent look. IMHO the Munich house numbers are better than the Berlin ones, as they also include the street name and (most of the time) an arrow pointing out the numbering direction (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:House_numbers_in_Munich https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:House_numbers_in...). Not sure what that font is called either though...
- hnbad 3y ago
  > many (most?) larger German cities I guess those qualifiers cancel each other out? Anyway. Berlin is twice as big as the second biggest city, Hamburg. Munich is the third largest city: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cities/germany https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cities/germany We've gone over Berlin and Munich, here's Hamburg: https://www.hamburg.de/contentblob/153026/31a1e4447ce01eb4b8fd6a29a8ff6ad4/data/bpd-hausnummern.pdf https://www.hamburg.de/contentblob/153026/31a1e4447ce01eb4b8... - must be placed at least 180 cm above ground, near the entrance or on the side facing a public road - if the building is too far away from a public road for the number to be recognizable, it must be placed at the entrance of the premises, no lower than 90 cm above ground - it must be made out of a material that can withstand weathering and provides good visibility of its shape and color - for certain buildings (office buildings?) the numbers must be illuminated to be visible in low light conditions Here's #4 on the list, Cologne: https://www.stadt-koeln.de/service/produkte/00930/index.html https://www.stadt-koeln.de/service/produkte/00930/index.html - it must use "arabic numerals" (i.e. not Roman numerals) which must be at least 8.5cm high - it must be visible and legible from a public road Frankfurt am Main (#5) does not seem to specify any requirements and thus defers to Hesse, which doesn't seem to specify any requirements either. https://frankfurt.de/themen/planen-bauen-und-wohnen/planen/strassenbenennung/hausnummerierung https://frankfurt.de/themen/planen-bauen-und-wohnen/planen/s... I'm not going to go over the rest of the list as the lesson seems clear: some cities/municipalities have strict regulations, some barely have any, size doesn't really seem to be a deciding factor.

tomsmeding 3y ago

The "Language support" block features text in Latin, Cyrillic (Кириллицу) and Greek (normally Ελληνικά), but the text says Ελληυικά with an υ (upsilon, pronounced "i") instead of a ν (nu, pronounced "n"). Strange place to have a typo!

Klaster_1 3y ago
Second this, I also noticed the typo in Greek. The Cyrillic reads weird too, it's in accusative case instead of nominative I'd expect.

paol 3y ago

Does it have an ampelmann glyph? If not I call fake.

omega3 3y ago

I feel that compared to the beautiful examples of train station lettering this looks very generic.

formerly_proven 3y ago

I generally dislike these "corporate design" typefaces, because - just like this one - the character set is usually quite small and they're almost never a complete set of styles and cuts - just like this one is just two styles, regular and bold. No italics, for example. Nevermind things like self-declared companies who lack a mono-space font in their corporate design suite (strangely enough they never lack a dedicated Powerpoint headline font).

redder23 3y ago

Let me guess, massive amounts of taxpayers money was paid to them to create this font, that they do not even open source and allow no modifications and such. Also, the font looks pretty generic and nothing special or unique. I do not see much value here, there are probably 100 fonts that look pretty similar to this.

wizerdrobe 3y ago
While I understand the need or desire of a capital city like Berlin to have “good design” and advertise, i.e. “I <3 NY” a font seems deep in the rabbit hole. Is there much prior example of other metropolis making this deep of a design choice on small details like a custom font?
- Mashimo 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39522893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39522893
_cenw 3y ago
Jung von Matt is definitely one of the most prestigious advertising agencies in the country, it not the most.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  Never heard of them.
  - bowsamic 3y ago
    If you had heard of them they wouldn't be doing their job right
  - hnbad 3y ago
    Most consumers haven't. Most advertising agencies have. Some campaigns German consumers would be aware of: - Saturn, "Geiz ist geil" - Edeka, "Supergeil" - Sparkasse, "08/15 Bank" (very beige board meetings) - Bild, "Bild dir deine Meinung" Basically if you've seen any catchy ad campaign on German television in the past thirty years it was probably made by them. You don't have to like their work or think that it's good but they've been extremely successful and so have been many of their campaigns.

l3x 3y ago

Related - a previous HN thread about Sweden Sans [1] that links to: * Finlandica font for Finland [2] * Public Sans for USA public sector [3] * Mariane and Spectral for France [4] ... among others! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36775398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36775398 [2] https://toolbox.finland.fi/brand-identity-and-guidelines/finlandica-font/ https://toolbox.finland.fi/brand-identity-and-guidelines/fin... [3] https://public-sans.digital.gov/ https://public-sans.digital.gov/ [4] https://www.systeme-de-design.gouv.fr/elements-d-interface/fondamentaux-de-l-identite-de-l-etat/typographie/ https://www.systeme-de-design.gouv.fr/elements-d-interface/f...

ggrelet 3y ago

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parisine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parisine

SushiHippie 3y ago

(2020)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

55555 3y ago

If you went through letters the way Germans do, you'd need your own font too.

NeoTar 3y ago

It's a shame they don't list ö, ä and ü (or ß) in their alphabet (although to be fair they are listed in the full list of glyphs) - those are pretty fundamental to . I kinda like how they're done in the sign for Möckernbrücke - they also seem like an afterthought, desperately added in whatever space was avaliable! See https://www.dreamstime.com/metro-train-station-sign-m%C3%B6ckernbr%C3%BCcke-mockernbrucke-berlin-germany-march-image142132453 https://www.dreamstime.com/metro-train-station-sign-m%C3%B6c... (apologies for the awful, watermarked photo).

seabass-labrax 3y ago
At least it comes out better than that stock image website's rendition: "MÃ¶ckernbrÃ¼cke"!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

amai 3y ago

What happend with the font since 2020? Did it get used anywhere?

amai 3y ago

See also https://neuedin.com/ https://neuedin.com/