Schriftguss AG information

Schriftguss AG was a type foundry in Germany founded in 1892 under the name Brüder Butter (“Butter Brothers”) by purchasing the type casting firm of Otto Ludwig Bechert that had been founded in 1889. It was later incorporated in 1922 as Schriftguss A.-G. vorm. [prev.] Brüder Butter. Their types were known for “vigour, liveliness and freshness.” Though some faces were done in house, the foundry mainly worked with outside “Schriftkünstler” (freelance lettering artists / type designers), more than was typical at the time. A unique product of the foundry were modular systems of “Plakattype” to compose shapes and letterforms for display and jobbing applications, for instance Dekora, or Albert Auspurg’s 1931 Ne-Po (negative–positive), and finally Super-Plakattype in 1949. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 the last of the Butter brothers resigned from the corporation and it was changed to a limited partnership. In 1948 the company was expropriated by the post-war communist government and became public property, under the name VEB Schriftguss Dresden, eventually becoming merged into VEB Typoart – Drucktypen, Matrizen, Messinglinien in 1951. As a state run enterprise, the foundry lost its verve and panache and settled into producing serviceable type without distinction.^[1]