Sem Hartz: Essays

This one is a commemorative collection issued to mark the 80th birthday of the Dutch type designer and engraver Sem Hartz. The volume gathers Hartz’s reflections on his long career at the renowned Joh. Enschedé en Zonen foundry. It’s set in Hartz’s own Emergo typeface—a private, sharp-serifed face he designed during WWII that was never commercially released. The essays provide a rare, first-person glimpse into the technical world of steel engraving for banknotes and stamps, as well as Hartz’s complicated professional relationship with his predecessor, Jan van Krimpen. It is a tactile piece of printing history that serves as a bridge between the tradition of hand-cut punches and mid-century industrial production. Partly in Dutch, but that’ll be no problem for your devices to decode.