Schlesische Geschichtsblätter

Schlesische Geschichtsblätter

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The Verein für Geschichte Schlesiens ("Association for Silesian History"), founded in Breslau (now Wrocław) in 1846, was among the most important German associations for the study of history and antiquity in the period before World War II. Its scientific authority was recognised well beyond the bounds of its discipline; nevertheless, it had to discontinue its work at the end of the war. The association was refounded in 1971, but it still took several decades until the "Schlesische Geschichtsblätter" ("Journal of Silesian History"), the association's own important magazine for questions of regional history, was published once again in 2010.

The basic concept for the new design of the republished magazine was to retain the features influenced by the typesetting limitations and the typographic Zeitgeist of the earlier period, and to enrich these with details offered by today's digital type design. We drew a new typeface for the title based on old covers, and also created a new redrawing of the historical seal (with Ole Häntzschel), from which only an old stamp imprint remained. For the same reasons, we chose to do without the register accuracy which is standard today (this was made possible by the opacity of the excellent "Fly"-Paper) and we set the paragraphs, like the footnotes, with the harmonious distances common to the period.

The footnotes, set in a block without a line break, as they sometimes appeared in the original issues from 1908–1943, are are good example of an aesthetically pleasing and often space-saving composition technique which has now almost completely disappeared because automated typesetting programs have replaced manual composition in this form.

Client: Verein für Geschichte Schlesiens e.V., Würzburg, Germany

In collaboration with Zwölf Medien, agency for software development and web design.