Duerer (pronounced dyre) was originally issued as a metal typeface in 1890 by the Boston Type Foundry, and later manufactured as wood-type by the Hamilton Co. The typeface was named after Albrecht Duerer, Germany’s sixteenth century Renaissance artist, art theorist and author who had a geometric approach to letter design. One of his woodcuts is used as a clue in the latest Dan Brown novel “The Lost Symbol”.

According to Nicolette Gray in her book on ornamented typefaces, the Duerer typeface is characterized by almost square spaces within normally curved letters, some diagonal strokes midway up some letters, and strong vertical strokes with modest serifs that are highly inclined on some letters such that they descend below the baseline. All these features can be seen on our 10-line sample “GERMANY” by Hamilton.