This exhibition - in the outdoor display cases on the entrance courtyard of the design museum - marks the anniversary of the design from 1923 of the typeface and a signpost system for the municipality of Gentofte by Knud Valdemar Engelhardt.

His font is distinctive and, once seen, can be identified easily on road signs throughout Gentofte.

Individual letters are rounded and generously spaced with low ascenders and short descenders …. letters such as o or m determine the general height of the lettering and here, in Engelhardt’s font, letters like k or h with ascenders and j or g with descenders are restricted so the overall height of the word is tightly controlled within the background of the sign itself.

In Engelhardt’s font the g and j are particularly distinct as the g has a simple straight descender -that does not curl under the round body of the letter - and the lower-case j, rather than having a full stop or dot above the stem of the letter, has a small red heart …. a ‘signature’ detail that is a play by Engelhardt’s on his own surname.

We now take for granted san serif lettering - lettering without the sharp triangular cuts at the top and bottom of verticals that came to printing from hand-drawn lettering and from lettering cut with chisels on wood or masonry, such as funeral monuments.

Engelhardt was born in 1881 when posters and commercial printing frequently revelled in mixing styles and sizes of font for impact. He trained at the academy and graduated in 1915 and clearly his design recognises work of the Art’s and Craft period with design by Thorvald Bindesbøll and Anton Rosen. This certainly does not detract from his design or suggest that it is derivative …. rather that it explains why the lettering sits comfortably within Danish design history and marks a crucial point when mass production and industrial production came of age and when quality and context became a significant consideration.

The most popular or, at least, the most obvious design by Engelhardt seen by citizens was a new tram for the city that he designed in 1910.

Engelhardt died in 1931, at the relatively young age of 49 but, although his career was short, he is a key figure in the history of Danish industrial design.

Urban Heartbeats
18 June 2023 to 2 October 2023

Designmuseum Danmark
Bredgade 68
1260 Købemhavn K