1930s New Deal Poster: What Typeset? Bremen? Or ??

By Jim on April 26, 2012

This New Deal poster for the Work Progress Administration (featured in the May issue of the Freeman) caught my eye.

Does anyone recognize this typeset?

W Baker April 27, 2012 at 7:36 am #

Jim,

There were quite a few WPA ‘fonts’. One has even become known as WPA Gothic. A good many were simply variations on Art Deco fonts of the period. This example, however, is different. It has a very striking Germanic post-Fraktur/Art Deco look to it.

But I can’t put my hands on it in any type catalogues I have.
Jim April 27, 2012 at 7:53 am #

Wes, thanks for the insights. I thought it looked fairly Germanic but I don’t know the designs nearly as well as you do.
Danny May 9, 2012 at 11:32 pm #

I’ve actually hired a couple of people who “graduated” from various job training programs in our state. While they do train people to perform a certain job, the one thing they don’t teach is a work ethic. One day I received a call from a handler for one of the “graduates” of the program inquiring as to how her charge was doing. I replied, “I don’t know, she left after half a day and hasn’t been back.”