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A visit to Berlin’s Letter Museum

Written by

Dr. Dan Reynolds

in

Antique Olive 04

As part of the city’s Lange Nacht der Museen (museum night), Berlin’s hoped-for Buchstaben Museum (letter museum) invited visitors to view its collection in a converted space on the ground floor of a highrise apartment building in the Leipziger Straße.

Wilkommen 01
This is Berlin. So what typeface do you see? Meta, of course! 
Toward the Buchstaben Museum 01
The approach toward the Schaudepot. 

Window 01

Although the experience was cool, I have to admit that my visit was not as good as it could have been. Apart from the size of the collection, which was small, none of the volunteers present asked me, for instance:

  • if I wanted to sign up for their email list (I already had on their website)
  • or if I would like a tour (I would have)
  • or if I would like to make a donation to their cause (which I wouldn’t have had, but it is always nice to be asked).

I would have paid admission to enter, but there wasn’t a fee. I did buy two cute little buttons! If you missed this open house, I’m sure that there will be another opportunity; this is already the second opportunity inside three months.

Zille Stube
What a wacky blackletter! Those stokes on the top of letters look like serifs. So is this a semi-serif fraktur?
Schuhe 02
Quite a beautiful old shoe sign. Neon, but with so much more love. 
Shiny letters 03
Mercedes-Benz letters. The museum says that they are modified Corporate A.

Comments

4 responses to “A visit to Berlin’s Letter Museum”

  1. Das Buchstaben (Letter!) Museum – You Should Like Type Too

    […] of what is in this collection, Dan Reynolds has some images and font IDs up at his flickr and blog. That guy is crazy, he visited the museum, got home, and blogged about it before I was even there! […]

  2. EarlMobile

    I considered to visit the Buchstabenmuseum for the Lange Nacht der Museen but since there were no other places and exhibitions I was interested in and I knew that the Buchstabenmuseum is just about to grow slowly I preferred a calm evening …
    So did you shoot all these photos? Are there more to see? Now that I saw some impressions I start to regret my choice…

    Greetings

  3. Dan Reynolds

    Yes, I took all of these pictures. This is about all that there was to see while I was there. Many letters (as you can tell from the photographs) are simply piled on top of each other for want of more space! On the website of the “museuem” there is also some information about many (most?) of the collection’s letter groups.

  4. EarlMobile

    I like the concept of collecting neon and storefront signs from shops in Berlin. It gets familiar somehow. Though I don’t recognise any of them.
    The museum may raise as a showcase for the development of typographic styles in the last 50 years of Berlin’s history. At least this would be my little dream… :P

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