Architype van der Leck Architype van der Leck Architype van der Leck is a geometric sans-serif typeface based upon the 1941 typeface designed by Bart van der Leck for the Dutch magazine "Flax," a journal of the De Stijl art movement. The face is geometrically constructed, and based upon an earlier stencil lettering alphabet van der Leck designed in the early 1930s for use in branding and advertising Jo de Leeuw's prestigious Dutch department stores Metz & Co. The face shares structural similarities with Theo van Doesburg's 1919 geometric alphabet, and anticipates later typographic explorations of geometric reductionism of Wim Crouwel's 1967 "New Alphabet"
De Stijl connections in the art world. Around 1915, Van Doesburg started meeting the artists who would eventually become the founders of the journal. He first met Piet Mondrian at an exhibition in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Mondrian, who had moved to Paris in 1912 (and there, changed his name from "Mondriaan"), had been visiting the Netherlands when war broke out. He could not return to Paris, and was staying in the artists' community of Laren, where he met Bart van der Leck and regularly saw M. H. J. Schoenmaekers. In 1915, Schoenmaekers published "Het nieuwe wereldbeeld" ("The New Image of the World"),