Skip to content
Home / Fonts / Elsner+Flake / Caligari Pro
Caligari Pro

Caligari™ Pro

by Elsner+Flake
Individual Styles from $99.00 USD
Caligari Pro Font Family was designed by Gerd Sebastian Jakob, Joerg Ewald Meißner and published by Elsner+Flake. Caligari Pro contains 1 styles.

More about this family
FREE 30-DAY TRIAL of Monotype Fonts to get over 150,000 fonts from more than 1,400 type foundries. Start free trial
Start free trial

About Caligari Pro Font Family


The silent film »The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari« (1920) is undoubtedly one of the breathtaking milestones within the German Expressionist Movement, a time of extraordinarily creative works of art as a reaction to a world in rapid change. The original intertitles of Caligari were worked out by the set designers (and painters) Walter Reimann, Walter Röhrig, and Hermann Warm, using a unique expressionistic language of form for dramatic and iconic lettering. When in 2010 KOMA AMOK’s Joerg Ewald Meißner and Gerd Sebastian Jakob were commissioned by the Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt and publisher Hatje Cantz to design the catalog for the exhibition »The Total Artwork in Expressionism«—showing works of art, architecture, film, literature, theater, and dance—it was soon perfectly clear that a new typeface, inspired by the Caligari intertitles, should speak for all the expressionistic arts. An intense process of research and analysis began. The original letters of the Caligari intertitles were individuals on their own. Furthermore, each of the three title designers had added his specific approach to the basic Caligari type style. From hundreds of different As to Zs a choice had to be made, which should be THE characteristic Caligari letter for a digital typesetting font. Finally the chosen letters were cut and drawn again, missing letters were added according to the formal priniciples, all-in-all 1000 glyphs were digitised to complete a usefull OpenType font ready for use. When in the autumn of 2010 the exhibition started successfully with great media interest, the posters all over Darmstadt announced »You must become Caligari!« – set in the brandnew typeface. The font Caligari Pro offers alternative forms for every letter and a whole bunch of ligatures, thus creating an expressive, individual image of headlines and text. By using included Stylistic Alternates the image will get even more vivid. Caligari comes with a complete set of expressionist ornaments and true old style figures—thus the heyday of the Expressionist Movement and the era of the silent films can be revived typographically by the means of today: »Express Yourself!«.

Designers: Gerd Sebastian Jakob, Joerg Ewald Meißner

Publisher: Elsner+Flake

Foundry: Elsner+Flake

Design Owner: KOMA AMOK

MyFonts debut: Jun 30, 2017

Caligari™ Pro

About Elsner+Flake

About Elsner+Flake

In March 1986 Veronika Elsner and Günther Flake founded their company Elsner+Flake Designstudios after ten years of freelance experience in the field of type design, typography and digitizing of fonts and logos. The general aim of the company is to create a continuously growing library of digital fonts. Today the Elsner+Flake Digital Library with a worldwide presentation and appreciation contains more than 2,500 fonts, which are available in Mac PostScript, PC PostScript and PC Truetype.

Typography with a Difference

Electronic modification is avoided, all italics are digitized from original artwork. Text and headline typefaces have matching cap heights and contain standard character layouts. Complete kerning tables guarantee a precise appearance and excellent legibility. Accents on caps and lowercase letters are individually designed. Many typefaces feature small caps and old style numbers. Most fonts are already completed with the new euro currency symbol.

Partners Worldwide

Elsner+Flake cooperates worldwide with more than thirty-five business partners. In case of questions concerning the Elsner+Flake Digital Library or to order a specimen catalogue please contact the address given. We will introduce you to your closest Elsner+Flake distributor.

Read more

Read less