Dyrynkova Latinka (or Dyrynk Roman) is a text face designed in 1929 by Karel
Dyrynk (1876-1949). Dyrynk, an important figure in the Czech book arts field in
the early 20th century, was director of the government printing works (Státní
tiskárna) and editor of the Czech journal Typografia. He also wrote two
influential books: Rules of Typesetting (Pravidla sazby) and The Book Beautiful
(Krásná Kniha). Dyrynk worked closely with Vojtech Preissig; the two helped define
and elevate Czech book arts from a state of almost non-existence to international
respect and even envy.
Dyrynkova Latinka (cast for exclusive use in the Státní tiskárna) is one of
several faces Dyrynk designed, although he is not primarily regarded as a type
designer. Just as with Preissig, it was Dyrynk’s all-encompassing involvement in
all aspects of the book arts that influenced his type designs. Dyrynkova Latinka,
as well as its Italic counterpart, is rather quirky, and seems to be almost hand-
lettered. (Type designer and book artist, W.A. Dwiggins, neatly hand-lettered many
of his book illustration captions in a similar manner.) Dyrynk’s font has a warmth
that makes text cast in it appear inviting and somewhat casual, but not so much so
as to be overly distracting.
P22 undertook the digital versions of Dyrynk Roman and Italic in an attempt to
retain many, if not all, of the slight idiosyncrasies that first made it so
appealing. We found source material for the font in several Czech publications. We
kept many of the serifs and curves irregular to avoid making the design geometric
and sterile. The original lower case “e” slants to the right even more than the
digital version’s (one of the few changes from the original design). The overall
weight is rather thin, which makes the font very well suited for text in larger
display sizes or even conversion to polymer plate for letterpress printing. An
expanded OpenType version for Central European and other languages is also in
progress.
Special thanks for research and feedback to: Filip Blazek, Veronika Burian, Gerald, Lange, Brian Maloney, Ondrej Sturma & Tiffany Wardle.
Designed by Richard Kegler.
