If Lucian puts you in mind of the legendary Bernhard Modern Roman, you’re right on the mark—it’s from the hand of the same designer, Lucian Bernhard (1883-1972) who also gave us his eponymous Gothic, Fashion, and Tango. He became known as an artist, designer, and typographer in his native Germany before emigrating to the U.S. in 1928. This, his ‘first-name face’, predates those others, all of which were done for American Type Founders after coming to New York. Evidently he liked the hint of taper he gave the stems of the characters, for this design element was incorporated to a much more overt degree in Bernhard Modern Roman, which appeared some twelve years later. So here for your printing pleasure is Lucian in 24 point. This face was designed for the Bauer foundry in five variants: Light, Book, Semibold, Bold, and Open. Characters of particular interest are the cap Q, with its own built-in gearshift lever, the soaring ft ligature, and the lowercase Q that thinks it’s a unicorn. Our electrodeposited matrices were made by Baltotype (with or without license) who tagged it with the unimaginative name of Graphic, offered in Light and Bold. The Light seems to be Bauer’s Semibold, and that is what we have cast. We have mats in 12pt through 36pt for both variants.
Lucian – 24pt
