Auto Grotesk
DDOTT · Dominik Thieme · 2025
A grotesque designed by Dominik Thieme that draws on pre-Akzidenz sources and wood-type production to bring deliberate irregularity and a variable pressure axis to digital type.
About
Conceived as a wood type for letterpress, the family references early nineteenth-century sans serifs including Bauer & Co.'s Cirkular Grotesk and Weisert's Breite Fette Grotesk, with each of the twelve styles drawn individually to preserve idiosyncratic rhythms. Two subfamilies, Auto Grotesk A and B, each offer six weights from Light to Extrabold, and variable axes of weight and pressure let designers control how much the letterforms appear to squish under ink. The mixing of rectangular and circular forms, combined with deliberately dialled-back optical corrections, gives the typeface a lively, unconventional cadence rarely found in contemporary grotesques.
Classification
Rooted in pre-Akzidenz grotesque sources such as Cirkular Grotesk and Breite Fette Grotesk, Auto Grotesk sits firmly in the nineteenth-century grotesque tradition, distinguished by intentionally naïve irregularities and a variable pressure axis that mimics letterpress ink squash.