Typeface Revival for Max Miedinger's Pro Arte
Helvetica's designer had a forgotten first typeface
Munchenstein Slab is Nikola Djurek's revival and expansion of Pro Arte (1954), Max Miedinger's debut typeface—a narrow slab serif with inverted stroke contrast that predates Neue Haas Grotesk by three years. The original was a single-style, capitals-only design that remained largely overlooked; Djurek extended it into a full family covering Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. A colour-font variant cycles randomly through vivid colours per character, and variable-font axes control weight and forward/backward slant.
Set in Munchenstein Slab
Insights
- The source design, Pro Arte (1954), existed only in a single style with capital letters; Djurek's revival extends it across multiple scripts with size-specific subfamilies.
- Colour-font version randomly assigns colours per character rather than using fixed palette assignments.
- Variable axes span weight plus both forward and backward slant directions.
- The broader Münchenstein project comprises three complementary subfamilies—Display (large sizes), Text (small sizes), and Slab (works best generously tracked).
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