Akzidenz-Grotesk is the neo-grotesque sans that H. Berthold AG issued in Germany around 1896 — the grandfather of Swiss typography and the direct ancestor of Helvetica and Univers. Cut as a neutral black-ink jobbing face for commercial printing, it became the type of the International Typographic Style. This system renders it in the black-ground Swiss-poster tradition it spawned: ink-black fields, pure-white type set flush-left, a rigid modular grid, and a single accent red as the only relief. Hierarchy comes from size and weight alone — no ornament, no shadow, no compromise.