Another font of the week, this time a bit more detailed after the spooky fonts of Halloween.
We are going to talk about an old font and one of my favorites:
Arnold Bocklin

History

Arnold Bocklin is a very old font.
It was designed by the German type-fondery Otto Weisert in Stuttgart.
Designed means in this case that Otto Weisert, who worked as typographer too, created this font for the usage in hot metal setting, the old fashioned way.

Arnold Bocklin, which was named in honor of the Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin who died in 1901.

Year of Design

1904

Weights

Just one weight.

Description

Arnold Bocklin is a font which is easy to recognize.
It is a decorative font, which reminds of the floral forms of Art Nouveau. Just have a look at the capital letters. They all have a certain swirl in them.

An old font which was used a lot for book design at the beginning of the 20th century.
It became popular again in the 1960s and 1970s when people fancied Art Nouveau design again. The influence of the font can bee seen in the works of the British artist Paul Harvey.

Since CorelDRAW, a popular graphic program, used to include a plagiat-font called “Arabia” which looked like the Arnold Bocklin people use to tag the font as oriental.
From a typographic point there is no connection from Arnold Bocklin to Arabian or Oriental styled fonts.

The rights for the digitalized font is with the big type-fondery Linotype.

Usage

It has been original designed for big letter sizes.
A headline in a book for example is not really big.

You see, by watching our little “lore” experiment, that the font looks great with the dropped capital. It also looks fantastic with the first 5 lines.

I didn’t reduce the font size as drastically as I did it with Calibri.
This time the smallest letter is about 15 point. Which is not a small size.

Texts in books come along in 9 point to 12 point.

So Poster Headlines would be the first idea to use the Arnold Bocklin.
In Germany you can see them as logo font for flower shops.
Not an uncommon idea, since the font looks very decorative and Art Nouveau is connected with floral swings.

Some Turkish restaurants use this font too.
Guess this is a reminiscence to the CorelDRAW font “Arabia”.

I have even seen it on door bell nameplates.

You can use it with subjects that can be tagged magic, fairytales or hippie.

I would love to use it for a book cover or a cd-cover.

What I like about the font

It was one of the first fonts I was able to recognize clearly.
It is extraordinary and outstanding.
It has a certain kind of individuality but fits into a bigger continuity.

I love fonts which are connected to the basics of my profession.
The Arnold Bocklin was born as a hot metal font and can now be used on every computer.

In my opinion it is a very feminine font.
In contrast to some feminine script fonts the Arnold Bocklin is kind of grounded.
A beautiful woman who stands with her feet on the ground but loves to wear fashion.

Letter gallery

So what will be our next font of the week?
Leave a comment.