Rudolf Koch cut type the way a scribe writes: broad nib first, graver second, drawing almost never. Neuland went straight into metal punches at every size, which is why its weight wobbles and its terminals land blunt. At the Offenbacher Werkstatt he and Fritz Kredel worked as a guild — punchcutter, woodcutter, weaver, bookbinder at the same bench.

The look is a letterpress sheet: warm handmade rag paper, black ink bitten into the surface, one vermilion rubrication for emphasis, and the solid woodcut signs of Das Zeichenbuch floating in generous white. Lettering is the composition, not the ornament on top of it.