Jakob Erbar (1878-1935)
Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, Jakob Erbar was a type designer and teacher. Originally he trained as a compositor in Düsseldorf, studying type with Fritz Helmut Ehmcke and Anna Simons. He worked as a typesetter for the DuMont-Schauberg print works in Cologne until 1908, when he left to teach at the Städtische Berufsschule (vocational college). After the First World War, he taught at Cologne's Werkschule (a forerunner of the city's technical university) until 1935.
The majority of his type design work happened after 1910 and he continued to produce fonts until his death. His fonts include Feder-Grotesk, Erbar-Gortesk, Koloss, and Candida. Although created in 1929, his Erbar font is often used in modern graphics and web design. He also produced a number of fonts for the Frankfurt foundry, Ludwig and Mayer.
He died, aged 56, in Cologne, Germany.
[LC, November 2009]
Fonts designed by Jakob Erbar
