About this typeface: Fredrikson is a Swedish designer living in Malmö who noticed the new vehicle plate font FE Schrift sported on German cars coming across the border in 1998, and set out to create Sauerkrauto based on plate photographs he took.

Comparison with FE Schrift: Typographically, the design is more harmonious and aesthetically consistent than the original German number plate font FE Schrift, differing in several characters. (See FE Mittelschrift for Lineto’s exact replica of FE Schrift.) O and Q are noticeably different, and there are more subtle differences in J (shorter top crossbar), R (wider gap where the right leg meets the vertical stroke), V (symmetrical stroke widths both left and right), and zero (the angled “cut” at upper right is wider).

The added lowercase carries through consistently the squarish forms of the uppercase, contributing a quirky touch of its own with the lowercase t’s below-the-x-height crossbar. (Compare Sauerkrauto’s more regularized lowercase with the more informal and idiosyncratic lowercase of FE Mittelschrift, Lineto’s version of FE Schrift.) Note that the Alternative weight differs from the Regular weight only in the lowercase characters a, g, i, j, l, and s. (See FontShop’s Sauerkrauto page for examples.)

Fredrickson also accentuated the preexisting slightly rounded corners throughout the font, pumping up a bit the industrialized look and feel that roller-coated characters on embossed plates have.

For further specimens or to buy this font:

Fountain (original foundry)
FontShop
Chank Note: The font at Chank appears to be an earlier version of the typeface without the Alternative and Small Caps weights. Whether that’s actually the case is not clear, however, so if you are buying, inquire to verify.

We do not sell fonts ourselves or field questions about them.

Site owner/author: Ward Nic holson |

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