The digital font Technotyp is based on the hot metal typeface created by the German typographer and type designer Herbert Thannhaeuser (1898-1963) for the former East German type foundry Typoart in Dresden.

In the typography book ‘Der Schriftsetzer’ (Fachbuchverlag, Leipzig, 1952), by Paul Fritzsche, this absolutely beautiful slab serif design is presented in all its variations. Fritzsche remarked that – because of its rather condensed form and its relatively long ascenders – the ‘Werkschrift’ of the Technotyp (comparable with our ‘Regular’) seemed to be very well suited to serve as a text face, and recommended for this purpose that the face be cut for the composing machine. However, this never happened and the entire Technotyp family was made available for hand composition only.

This is finally changing and being remedied for good now: URW++ proudly presents the new digital version of this really charming font family with its distinct flavor of the 1950s, adding it to the other digital renditions of Herbert Thannhaeuser fonts at URW++, namely Garamond No. 4 and Magna. The original Typoart family had an italic style for the light version only. The new digital version of Technotyp includes italic styles for the regular, medium and bold weights as well, enhancing the family to meet today’s standards and requirements for professional type setting. To further increase its usefulness, Cyrillic faces were created, too. True to the standard for all digital fonts at URW++, the character set for Technotyp covers all West- and East European languages.