As a student and young man, Emil Rudolf Weiss (born 1875) was influenced by the style which was new and was dominant in Europe at the end of the century. He was a calligrapher, illustrator, painter, graphic designer, wood-engraver, and a poet. As a poet his wordings were set to music by Max Kretschmar and Jan Sibelius. He designed fabrics, wallpapers, stained-glass windows, furniture, ceramics, company logos, and was a muralist for ocean liners and country houses. Although Weiss claimed that his works of publishing books was a secondary interest after his water-color painting work, his flood of book work was inspiring: he designed magazines and books - the arrangement of typographic the pages, and the bindings, as required, the end-papers, dust-jackets, title-pages, etc. In case an opening illustration or initial was needed, he would cut it in wood or draw it, or engraved it. But in case floral decorations were needed, he would design and drew them.
He was able to produce high quality and attractive work that captured the attention of the Bauer Typefoundry. Weiss he was commissioned to design ornaments that were to be cast in type metal. Subsequently, he designed at least 3 sets of Weiss Initials and.3 major type-faces for text setting. First, Weiss was invited to design a typeface as a commission for a conglomerate of German publishers who wanted to issue classic texts of a uniform edition. The work was dabbed the Tempel-Klassiker series, which had exclusive use of Weiss. He also designed the general layout of books including the various bindings and the title-page. The artist went back to Friedrich Johann Ungar types of the 18th-century for inspiration.
