In 1898, Georg Hartmann acquired two type foundries that would become central to the history of modern typography: Bauersche Giesserei in Frankfurt (active from 1837 to 1972) and Fundición Tipográfica Neufville in Barcelona, Spain (1885–1995). Under his leadership, both foundries rose to international prominence through close collaboration with leading artists and typographers of the time, including E. R. Weiss¹, Lucian Bernhard², Elizabeth Friedlaender³, Heinrich Jost⁴, Imre Reiner⁵, Oldřich Menhart⁶, Ernst Schneidler⁷, and Paul Renner⁸, creator of Futura.

In 1927, Hartmann founded a New York branch, the Bauer Type Foundry, later renamed Bauer Alphabets. For more than five decades, this subsidiary introduced typefaces such as Bauer Bodoni, Weiss, Venus, Beton, and Futura to the North American market. It also benefited from local contributions by American designers Howard A. Trafton and William Gillies.

Carlos Hartmann, Georg’s son, took over the direction of the Fundición Tipográfica Neufville in 1922. In addition to consolidating the foundry as the most important in Spain, he diversified its activities by incorporating the distribution of printing machinery from leading manufacturers such as Heidelberg, Roland, Koenig & Bauer, Krause, Hoh & Hahne, and Goebel.

At the time of his death in 1950, the company already had a solid technical and commercial structure. Following Georg Hartmann’s death in 1954, designers Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum⁹ created new typefaces such as Folio, Imprimatur, and Volta (also known as Fortune in some countries).

In 1963, Wolfgang Hartmann, grandson of Georg and son of Carlos, took over the direction of Neufville’s type department after five years of training at the Bauersche Giesserei. During his tenure, he pursued a determined expansion strategy through the acquisition of several European type foundries:

• Fundición Tipográfica Nacional¹⁰ (Spain, 1971)
• Fonderie Typographique Française¹¹ (France, 1974)
• Lettergieterij Amsterdam¹² (Netherlands, 1984)
• Ludwig & Mayer¹³ (Germany, 1985)
• Les Fonderies Réunies de Caractères du Liban¹⁴ (1988)

In 1974, he also founded the subsidiary Neufville France, operating in France, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.

Through this expansion, Neufville acquired a significant typeface catalog that would later prove essential for the digital era—a catalog that continues to grow. Typefaces such as Impressum (1963) by Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum, or Serifa(1968) by Adrian Frutiger¹⁵, further expanded its prestigious library.

The greatest challenge came with the shift in technological paradigms. In the face of the rise of digital environments and the disappearance of metal type, Neufville—and later Bauer Types—became the only traditional European type foundry to successfully complete the transition to the digital world. It managed to keep its typographic legacy alive by adapting both its catalog and its expertise to a new technical and commercial context.

In 1998, Neufville Digital was created as a joint venture between Bauer Types S.L., a Spanish company succeeding Bauersche Giesserei and Fundición Tipográfica Neufville, and Visualogik, a Dutch-French company.

Neufville Digital benefits from Visualogik’s high professional skills in font production, ensuring great quality and reliability. Meanwhile, Bauer Types S.L. brings long-standing technical and professional experience and contributes part of its typographic catalogue, allowing the original designs to be faithfully replicated.

In 2000, Vivian Hartmann, a fourth-generation member of the family, joined Bauer Types with the aim of developing the distribution of digital typefaces in Spain. In this role, she represented some of the most relevant international type manufacturers in the industry, including Monotype, Linotype, FontBureau, FontShop, House Industries, Paratype, and TypeTogether.

After a period devoted to teaching, in 2022 she resumed leadership of the project with a renewed vision: to position Bauer Types as a national and international reference in the distribution and digitalisation of typefaces, grounded in excellence, technical guidance, and the highest quality standards across every aspect of typographic service. This purpose is driven together with a committed and highly professional team, with whom she shares the ambition of achieving the company’s strategic goals.

Her mission is clear: to renew the typographic legacy of the Bauersche Giesserei and Neufville, and to strengthen the value of typography within society and the contemporary world.

Thanks to her deep knowledge of the field, Vivian promotes typography as a strategic tool for identity, capable of providing precise solutions to the technical, visual, and linguistic needs of brands and institutions, across both physical and digital environments.

Currently, Bauer Types is in the process of updating its type catalogue, with new releases gradually emerging as the company’s digitalisation projects continue to evolve.

In January 2026, Neufville Digital,  has been acquired by Bauer Types S.L., transferring the entire Neufville Digital catalogue into Bauer Types’ typographic library.

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All images from this section courtesy of the Bauer–Neufville Type Foundry Archive (University of Barcelona, UB). All rights reserved.