BAUER BETON
Heinrich Jost, Imre Reiner [Designer]
Imre Reiner [Designer], Heinrich Jost: BAUER BETON. New York: Bauer Type Foundry, Inc. [c. 1936]. Octavo. Side stapled limp self wrappers. 24 pp. Type line and weight specimans and layout suggestions. Elaborate graphic design throughout. Probably missing covers, with textblock well thumbed and a few leaves lightly chipped. A fair to good —possibly incomplete—copy.
7.75 x 11.75 vintage type speciman promotion designed by [OKTOGON] Imre Reiner, Paris, circa 1936, featuring the five weights of Heinrich Jost's Beton typeface and sample layouts utilizing the font that " . . . shows the same abstract qualities as modern architecture, automobiles and airplanes." An exceptional snapshot of the typesetting industry during the Interwar years and a fine document from the Mechanical Age of Graphic Design.
Heinrich Jost (1889 – 1948) was a typographer, type designer and graphic designer. Originally trained as a bookseller, he also attended courses at the Kunstgewerbe- und Handwerkerschule in Magdeburg. Jost moved to Munich in 1908 and took evening courses at the Kunstgewerbeschule under Paul Renner and Emil Preetorius. From 1923 to 1948 he was the art director of the Bauersche type foundry in Frankfurt am Main. At Bauer, he oversaw the work of innovative designers Paul Renner, Lucian Bernhard and Imre Reiner. Font designs attributed to Jost include Fraktur (1925), Atrax (1926), Bauer Bodoni (1926), Aeterna (1927), and Beton (1930–36).
Our object should be to establish contact with tradition, using our own means, and thus turning the short-comings we feel when comparing ourselves with past achievements into virtues by dint of diligence. —Irme Reiner, LETTERING IN BOOK ART [1947]
Imre Reiner (1900 – 1987) worked as a graphic designer in London, Paris, New York and Chicago and studied with F. H. Ernst Schneidler, a well-known German designer. In 1931, he moved to Ruvigliana near Lugano to paint, design and illustrate. She designed many fonts including Meridian (1930), Corvinus (1934–35), Matura (1938), Symphonie (1938), Reiner Script (1951), Reiner Black (1955), Mustang (1956), London Script (1957), Mercurius (1957), and Pepita (1959).