The Gutenberg-Jahrbuch is a scientific publication issued yearly by the German Gutenberg-Gesellschaft (International Gutenberg Society) since 1926. It offers articles in several languages, covering a broad spectrum of topics from the history of printing, libraries, book trade and publishing to typography, papermaking, illustration and bookbinding.

The yearbook, supervised and occasionally redesigned by well-known typographers of the 20^th and 21^st century, is renowned for high quality of its content as well as its design and fabrication. For the 100^th anniversary of the Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, the organization wants to establish a special typeface to meet the requirements of a contemporary scientific publication in print and digital.

The objective of this research project is the development of this custom type family.

How can a typeface convey the visual identity of the Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, while providing optimal readability and functionality for a contemporary publication and digital use?

The publication sits in the tradition of early book printing, which facilitated the spread of knowledge through Europe during the Renaissance. Therefore the types of the 15th and early 16th century are particularly relevant to this research.

What are the implications for a multilingual publication with texts in English, Spanish, German, French, Latin – discussing topics involving Greek, Hebrew and Cyrillic as well as medieval abbreviations and similar glyphs not encoded in Unicode?

The heavy use of italics, small caps and the multilingual approach which implies the need for a large character set are additional challenges in this project. The font should be open, free and accessible for the scientific community and the character set may be extended in the future.

This is the chance to add life and contemporary character to a scientific publication from Germany, which is known for its down-to-earth vibe and traditional design.