Certain typefaces are based on theories, just like the beginning of a piece of fiction. You start with reality and then branch out from it.

The starting point for EB Hymne is the typeface Stefan-George, named after the poet who designed it at the outset of the twentieth century.¹ But a model alone is not enough to define a type design project.

The poetic practice of Stefan George (1868–1933) was deeply influenced by the symbolism of Stéphane Mallarmé.² George translated the French poet and was a regular at his Tuesday gatherings from 1889, while he was staying in Paris. On his return to Germany, he kept up a lively correspondence with him until Mallarmé’s death in 1898.³ It is fair to assume that this relationship was connected to the attention George would pay to the “apparently external aspect” of a literary work.⁴

Stefan George, Hymnen, Berlin: no publisher mentioned, 1890. Cover.

George developed a singular approach to the format of his texts very early on. The cover of his very first publication, the collection of poems Hymnen (Hymns), published in 1890, is composed entirely in sans serif. As for the layout of the poems themselves, it departed from the conventions of the time: the beginning of the poem is placed very low down on the left-hand page, and the titles of the poems are written in a bold, narrow sans serif.

Stefan George, Hymnen, Berlin: no publisher mentioned, 1890. Spread.

The covers of Pilgerfahrten (1891), Algabal (1892), and Die Bücher der Hirten (1895) confirm this preference for sans serif typefaces, which was quite exceptional in the literary field at the time.

Stefan George, Pilgerfahrten, Vienna: no publisher mentioned, 1891. Cover.