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Walter Baum

German typographer (1921–2007)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ2543555
Source-derived summary

Walter Baum (23 May 1921 – 8 March 2007) was a German type designer, graphic artist and teacher. Baum trained as a typesetter from 1935 to 1939. He resumed his studies after World War II before becoming head of the graphics studio at the Bauer Type Foundry in 1948. There, he collaborated with Konrad Friedrich Bauer in designing many typefaces, including Fortune, the first Clarendon typeface with a matching italic. From 1972 to 1986 he was director of the Kunstschule Westend in Frankfurt am Main.

Fonts Designed by Walter Baum

All faces were designed in collaboration with Konrad Friedrich Bauer.

Alpha (Bauer, 1954)

Beta (Bauer, 1954), an alternate set of lower-case letters for Alpha.

Folio (Bauer and Intertype, 1956–63), also sold as Caravelle by Founderie Typographique Francaise.

Imprimatur (Bauer, and Intertype, 1952–55) also sold as Horizon by Founderie Typographique Francaise

Fortune or Volta (Bauer 1955)

Impressum (Amsterdam Type foundry and Bauer 1962)

References

General references

Jaspert, W. Pincus; Berry, William Turner; Johnson, Alfred Forbes (1970). The Encyclopaedia of Type Faces.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Walter Baum” is german typographer (1921–2007). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Walter, Baum and German, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1921, 2007, 1935, 1939—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1921-05-23. For this dossier, Walter, Baum and German is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “german typographer (1921–2007)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2543555. VIAF identifies the subject as 170239476. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 2007, 1935 and 1939.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Walter Baum”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Walter Baum primary sources, Walter Baum archive and Walter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Walter Baum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.