“Liebelei” – dalliance, flirtation, hanky-panky; kind of diminutive of “Liebe” (German for love)

The typeface Liebelei has its roots back in 1932, when Vienna-based painter Rudolf Vogl created the poster for a movie called Liebelei after the popular play by Arthur Schnitzler. Only the title letters existed of that typeface. I loved the letters from first sight and proceeded by adventurously interpreting the missing characters.

The goal was to create letterforms that fit to the original from the 1930s and represent a modern multi-purpose font. It should be an easy-to-use italic font with warm and friendly details and a huge variety of alternates and languages. The characteristic curled ends of most letters provide a script touch to the Liebelei. The first font entirely designed was the bold one which corresponds to the original poster lettering, although I tweaked the proportions a tiny bit to a more contemporary shape.

Liebelei covers Western, Central European, and Central Eastern European Languages and contains also a complete Greek character set. Liebelei is best for poster design as well as detailed usage, for example handsome tables, since it supports small caps, different kinds of numerals and fractions.