13 Facts About Rudolf Koch

Rudolf Koch was a German type designer, professor, and a master of lettering, calligraphy, typography and illustration.

In 1906 Rudolf Koch began working for the Rudhard Type foundry in Offenbach, later known as the Klingspor Type foundry.

Rudolf 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.

Rudolf Koch died prematurely of a heart attack in 1934, aged 57.

Yet Rudolf 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.

Rudolf Koch lectured at the Arts and Crafts School in Offenbach.

Rudolf Koch frequently defended Germanic blackletter script in the journals and publications he contributed to.

Rudolf Koch held exhibitions with his group Offenbach Schreiber, which promoted hand lettering and calligraphy, and in these, he expressed the revival of traditional lettering.

Rudolf Koch worked closely with bookbinder Ignatz Wiemeler, and together they created the "Offenbach Typography Style" of bookbindings.

Rudolf Koch's work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.

Rudolf Koch wrote a book containing 493 old-world symbols, monograms, and runes entitled The Book of Signs.

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

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