This typeface takes its name from the original designer, Justus Erich Walbaum, who engraved and cast the first Walbaum typeface around 1804. Type historians have called Walbaum one of the most important vehicles of typographic expression in the German language during the nineteenth century; it was very popular for setting poetry. Günter Gerhard Lange designed Berthold’s version in 1975, basing his adaptation on the 16-point cutting of the original. Walbaum is a modern typeface with high contrast between thick and thin strokes, and is effective for body text and headlines in books and journals.
