Koch-Antiqua

Family

Koch-Antiqua was released in several weights:

• Roman: the regular weight and the only style digitised by Linotype.
• Kursiv: a mixture of a true italic (in which the letters take handwriting forms) and oblique (simply slanted, as in the a). The capitals have a line drawn in them at larger sizes, an effect that in Tracy's words "only a designer thoroughly familiar with the elaborate capitals of some of the older German gothic lettering, and uninhibited by the traditions of roman and italic, would apply."
• Bold (groß) and bold italic: A more "carved" design.
• Oberlängen: Double-height capitals and letters with ascenders, making the lowercase look even smaller and more delicate.
• Decorative capitals: Zierbuchstaben, inline capitals, and Initialen, floral designs created by Koch's associate Willi Harwerth.
• Fett: Extra-bold weight.

A number of unauthorised imitations were later created by American Type Founders under the names of Rivioli and Paramount.

Digitisations

Koch-Antiqua has never been fully digitised, but a number of releases of some of the weights have been created. According to Paul Shaw, Eva Antiqua is the most complete digitisation, which also adds digitisations of the bold weights of the ATF knockoff font Paramount. None of the releases available as of 2011 include the decorative and extra-high letters of the original. At least one freeware implementation uses the Zierbuchstaben as its basis.

References

References

1. "Letters of Credit".
2. Vervliet, Hendrik D. L.. (19 December 2013). "Post-Incunabula en Hun Uitgevers in de Lage Landen / Post-Incunabula and Their Publishers in the Low Countries: Een bloemlezing gebaseerd op Wouter Nijhoff's L'Art typographique uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het 125-jarig bestaan van Martinus Nijhoff op 1 januari 1978 / A selection based on Wouter Nijhoff's L'Art typographique published in commemoration of the 125th anniversary of Martinus Nijhoff on January 1, 1978". Springer.
3. (1968). "Sixteenth-Century printing types of the Low Countries". Hes & De Graaf.
4. (1539). "Refereynen int vroede...". Joos Lambrecht.
5. "Font Wars: A Story On Rivalry Between Type Foundries".
6. Allan Haley. (15 September 1992). "Typographic Milestones". John Wiley & Sons.
7. "Eva Antiqua". Speice Graphics.
8. "Overlooked Typefaces".
9. Steffman, Dieter. (2005). "Koch-Antiqua Zier". DaFont.com.