What a great topic!

I think that Sweden is actually a hot-bed of typography. First, you have Fountain in Malmö (http://www.fountain.nu/), run by Peter Bruhn.

Then there is MacRhino (http://www.macrhino.com/), whose homepage bills itslef as "a new Swedish foundry". Stefan Hattenbach is a regular here on Typophile. I think that Stephen Coles used to work for him in Sweden. Coles could be considered an honorary Swede, at the very least.

Look at Linotype's Library (in Germany) over the past few years. Since I began working there, I've begun to think more and more that we are turning into a bastion for Swedish type designers… in our library, there is work from:

Anders Bodebeck (http://www.linotype.com/7-2286-7/andersbodebeck.html)
Bo Berndal (http://www.linotype.com/7-1936-7/boberndal.html)
Franko Luin (not born a Swede, but been there long enough! http://www.linotype.com/7-1527-7/frankoluin.html)
Lutz Baar (http://www.linotype.com/7-1945-7/lutzbaar.html)
and Lars Berquist (http://www.linotype.com/7-1925-7/larsberquist.html)
(maybe more, sorry if I left anyone out).

Plus, in Stockholm, you've got Pangea Design (http://www.pangeadesign.se/) which looks like Sweden's coolest design studio (at least from their website). Frederick from up there is an active poster here.

There are other typographic studios, too, i.e., A4 (http://www.a4.se/)

Lastly, a month ago, I saw the most fantastically illustrated book on the history of typography… and it was in Swedish (my girlfriend can speak some of the langauge… I think I had her translate half of it aloud for me just so that I could understand some of it!). I don't have a link to it, but it was new…

The thing is, I am not really sure what I am looking for. Is it typefaces designed by swedes, used by swedes or maybe inspired by swedes/sweden? If i design a typeface based on something I found in Germany, is my typeface swedish (as me), german (as the original) or dutch (where I live and study under great influence of dutch typographers)?

I think that your typeface would be Swedish AND German… and maybe Dutch, too. That is the great thing about moving around.

Just because some experts you asked in the Netherlands did not know much about Swedish typography doesn't mean that Swedish design isn't good or well-known. I'm an American living in Germany, and I haven't even spent three days in Sweden. But the quality of the work up there has managed to filter down to me anyway.

__
www.typeoff.de

Dan, You are too sweet!
And obviously: Hej där Peter!
Personally I don't believe in a specific Swedish typographic idiom. A typeface is Swedish if the designer is Swedish. Other will argue the opposite, and whenever I go to Denmark I can almost see their point. Now there's a typographic tradition You'll notice as specifically Danish. Although I wouldn't go so far to say You'll read Danish more efficiently in their wide sturdy type. Looks nice though.
The Swedish typographic scene has its heroes, but there hasn't been any real continuity, and, as elsewhere, no status in the craft. However, I wouldn't exclude the possibility that in the not too distant future there could actually be something happening in a more organized way. As Dan points out, things they are a-cookin'.

Regarding Karl-Erik Forsberg and Berling: We recently redesigned and updated it as Berling Nova and we're currently exploring possibilities for additional weights etc.

ƒ

Did Frutiger design Univers for the french/german (sorry, I don’t know what part of Switzerland he was from) language, or did he design it for all latin languages; does that have anything to do with anything?

The name, Univers, says it all: that typeface was multilingual by design. Emil Ruder, the champion of the International Style, has a special section on Univers in his Typographie (1967). There he shows its being used to typeset various languages, and compares it with other typefaces he thinks worked better for certain languages, and worse for others. If memory serves, those were: Garamond, for French; Baskerville, for English; and Bodoni, for Italian. That sort of thing...

Fredo, nice use of 2-pixel-stem text with 1-pixel-stem for emphasis. Much more readable. (Just close the tag at the end.)

hhp

< /strong >

Hi there Peter,

I think the Swedish typographic scene is more alive and kicking than ever. I do have a great respect for older designers like Karl-Erik Forsberg, Kumlin, Bo Berndahl etc, but the younger generations are coming on strong. I am probably somewhere in between (43, but hey I feel like 25) and plan to make a hell of a lot more typefaces than the the bunch I've made so far. I have the greatest respect for older techniques and the skill and knowledge that had to be included in order to perform well. But on the other hand I thank my lucky star that I live here and now, and are able to produce so much more than a couple of hundred years back... Fountain, Pangea and some others are also very active and I find it very stimulating to be part of all this. Peter, please welcome to join the party - long live Swedish typography!

Cheers

Hej everyone,
Thanks for the shown interest and great answers!
I guess I was beeing a bit unclear of how I see swedish typography – it's not that I don't think there are great things going on right now, I do for sure; I think what a lot of the people mentioned above do is amazing, and Farsan (oh, thats Peter Bruhn to you) has been my typographic guide in life since as long as I can remember, his stuff is of course awesome.
I guess, it's more about if these typefaces are swedish or just made by swedes.. if that is something that can be decided these days, or if that's just totally uninteresting? I guess I have compared the situation with things such as what was going on in Switzerland in the 50s-60s and the heritige coming from that (with things as the fonts at lineto.com, that in my opinion is very swiss somehow). But I am thinking more and more that in the days of modern living, with internet and all, maybe a thing as swedish typography is totally uninteresting; we pick our ways of seeing things, influences and so on from here and there, and don't follow in the traditional footsteps of other swedes (in this case). As said in my first posting, I don't really see my typographic interest coming from anything swedish, it has more been based on books & internet (from everywhere) in the past and dutch typography since I moved to Amsterdam.
Well, have to go to school now...

Grüsse,
peter

Hej Peter!
Don't forget Waldemar Zachrisson's Nordisk antikva from Genzsch & Heyse 1906. I guess it's the first typeface designed for swedish.

http://jeff.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/sweden.html
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-37316/artikel.html

Hälsningar,
Timo

Hej,
Though this post dates 2005, I'm still curious about this subject.
I'll visit Sweden (south) this year and I'm trying to find out about the influence of 'runes' on Swedish 'Typsnitt'. Any suggestions for sites?