Schriftgiesserei

Schriftgiesserei, literally meaning a type casting house, is a workshop or company that designs, fabricates and casts metal type for letterpress printing. In the era of movable type, Schriftgiessereien produced individual characters from a metal alloy and supplied printers with sets of letters, numerals, punctuation and ornaments ready for typesetting. The core technology involved punches that cut shapes into matrices, which in turn were used in moulds or casting machines to produce the individual sorts.

The operation of a Schriftgiesserei encompassed type design, matrix production and the actual casting process. Matrices carried the letter shapes and were assembled into a type “font” or “fount.” Type was cast in hot metal, typically an alloy of lead with small amounts of tin and antimony to improve hardness and durability. Printers organized the sorts into cases and used them in composing sticks to create lines of text.

Two major innovations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries reshaped the industry: Linotype and Monotype. Linotype cast entire lines as single slugs, greatly speeding up composition, while Monotype produced individual characters from stored matrices. Despite technological advances, traditional Schriftgiessereien continued to operate for many decades, supplying new fonts, rules, and ornaments and maintaining older type faces.

From the mid-20th century onward, phototypesetting and, later, digital typography led to a decline of metal type production. Today, the term often refers to historical workshops, though some font foundries and archives preserve and study the craft, typography, and the legacy of metal type.