Chiemseer beer
ITC Honda is used for the logotype of Chiemseer, a beer brand from Rosenheim, Bavaria.
Just like Fanfare and similar hybrid typefaces, Honda is a good choice when you want to channel some of the qualities associated with blackletter – here: traditional, rustic, crafted, German – without going full fraktur, bypassing ornate capitals, an ſ (long s) and other legibility hurdles. Honda was designed by Ronné Bonder and Tom Carnase, probably inspired by typefaces like Rudolf Koch’s Wallau (1930) or Louis Oppenheim’s Fanfare (1927), and debuted in 1970 as one of the first releases by ITC.
Chiemseer crown cap.
An earlier label shows Clairvaux for the logo. This interpretation of early Gothic writing styles was made as part of Linotype’s “Type before Gutenberg” program in 1990. It’s the only published typeface design by calligrapher Herbert Maring (1923–2012). “Hell” (lit. bright, i.e. lager beer) is in a beefed up rendition of Hermann Zapf’s Medici Script, a precursor to his ITC Zapf Chancery.
The fact that the beer is named Chiemseer and that the label shows the Chiemsee lake led to a lawsuit. It was objected that the brewery is in fact not located on the Chiemsee.
Since June 2016, the beer comes with new labels. The name Chiemseer remained, but is now accompanied by a new image, a prominent disclaimer “Gebraut in Rosenheim am Inn” (in Droid Serif), and a pointer to see the reverse, which shows a map indicating the location of Rosenheim (about 25 km west of the lake).
Crate from 2014, with the brewery’s name in Minion Black. Formerly doing business as Chiemgauer Brauhaus, it was renamed to Rosenheimer Spezialitätenbrauerei following the lawsuit.
