Rudolf Koch

Rudolf Koch (20 November 1876 – 9 April 1934) was a German type designer, professor, and a master of lettering, calligraphy, typography and illustration.

[2] Koch was deeply spiritual and a devout Lutheran, spending much of his time working on religious publications and manuscripts, of which he completed nearly a hundred in his lifetime.

Koch prized craftsmanship in his type design and printing methods, a principle deeply rooted in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

[5] Yet Koch was working in a period of rapid development in print technology, which saw the invention of the Linotype machine in 1886, the Monotype System in 1887, and the offset press in 1907, all of which were antithetical to his artisanal ethos.

[6] Many of Koch's blackletter typefaces, such as Kochschrift and Willhelm Klingspor Gotisch, were greatly influenced by hand-written manuscripts and Gothic letterforms,[8][9] a style that originated in Germany.

Hermann Zapf was a huge admirer of Koch, and took great inspiration from his work after acquiring a copy of his book Das Schreiben als Kunstfertigkeit (Writing as a Skill).

[18] Koch introduced his first sans-serif typeface, Kabel, in 1927, which is similar to Paul Renner's Futura,[19] designed the same year.