New Black Face: Neuland and Lithos as Stereotypography  "The
Neuland Question comes up regularly, and alas without much
resolution…." —Jonathan Hoefler  The “Neuland Question” to which
Jonathan Hoefler refers involves not just Neuland, a “display”
typeface hand-carved in 1923 by Rudolf Koch (Plate 1), but also
Lithos, another “display” typeface digitally created in 1989 by
Carol Twombly (Plate 2). The Question can be put simply: How did
these two typefaces come to signify Africans and African-
Americans, regardless of how a designer uses them, and
regardless of the purpose for which their creators originally
intended them? The investigation of this question has four
parts: first, an examination of the environments in which Koch
and Twombly created the original typefaces; second, an
examination of the graphic culture that surrounded African-
Americans prior to the creation of Neuland through a close
viewing of tobacco ephemera; third, an examination of the Art
Deco (French Modern) style, the graphic culture most