Berthold Type Foundry

A 1905 advertisement for Berthold in a Swedish printing journal, showcasing its Herold typeface.

H. Berthold was founded in Berlin in 1858 by Hermann Berthold, initially to make machined brass printer's rule. It then moved into casting metal type particularly after 1893.[1][2][3][4] The company played a key role in the introduction of major new typefaces and was a successful player in the development of typesetting machines.[5] The production premises were on Wilhelmstrasse No. 1 until 1868, and then on Mehringdamm 43. In 1979 the factory moved to another location between Teltow Canal and Wiesenweg in Lichterfelde.

The H. Berthold foundry's most celebrated family of typefaces is arguably Akzidenz-Grotesk (released 1898), an early sans-serif which prefigured by half a century the release of enormously popular neo-grotesque faces such as Helvetica. In 1950, type designer Günter Gerhard Lange embarked upon a long affiliation with the company, for which he designed various original typefaces, including Concorde and Imago, and oversaw the foundry's revivals of classic faces such as Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, and Bodoni.[6]

Beset by financial troubles, H. Berthold AG ceased operations in 1993.

In 1997, Berthold Types Limited acquired all of the copyright, trademark and design rights associated with the Berthold Exklusiv Collection. Günter Gerhard Lange, Berthold Exklusiv Collection type director during H. Berthold AG era, worked for Berthold Types Limited as an exclusive artistic consultant until his death in 2008.[7]

Following Berthold Types' co-owner Harvey Hunt's death in 2022-04-03,[8][9] Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc. announced the acquisition of Berthold Types Limited's inventory of typefaces (but not legal entity) in 2022-08-25.[10]

During Harvey Hunt's tenure at Berthold Types Limited, the company was accused of sending (frivolous) legal letters usually related to alleged trademark violations. This led to discussions of issues of Berthold not paying the original designers, such as Albert Boton.[11]

Berthold Diatronic systems were based on a glass grid master of each font weight, composed on a code-driven system. A marching-character display provided editing capabilities only to the line currently being composed.

The next incarnation of the Diatronic system was widely adopted in the high-quality ad setting trade in Europe. Its major advantage was fine control of typography thanks to continuously variable optics, allowing fractions of point sizes to be specified. Operator feedback was by means of a green-screen CRT display showing code mnemonics only, it being left to the operator to visualise final output. Keyboard operation was innovative, utilizing many keys with a single legend, such as <job>, <begin>, <set>, <end>, etc. System operation was therefore effected by a combination of keys, such as <job>, then <end> to save a file.