AM Alfabeti Modernisti
Italian modernist wood and metal type from the 1930s to the 1940s
For many years the typographer and connoisseur Luca Lattuga, a senior member of Anonima Impressori, has been collecting and cataloguing modernist wood type (and some metal type too) produced in Italy. Now he’s at work to expose his findings in a book, Alfabeti Modernisti Italiani, and CAST has decided to accompany his research on these forgotten types by creating digital revivals of the best designs Luca has uncovered. These revivals – commissioned to a team of members and collaborators of CAST – are going to be part of ‘AM Alfabeti Modernisti’, our brand new type collection.
An enticing collection of vernacular typography
In the 1930s modernist display types were very popular. Alongside Nebiolo’s best-sellers such as Neon, there was a plethora of wood types of original design. Often designed by amateurs rather than professional type designers, these types followed the European trend of geometric lettering, and can be considered a local expression of vernacular typography.
Known today as ‘rationalist’ types (the term ‘modernist’ has never found favour among Italian critics and historians), they were fashionable in advertising, leaflets, posters, and also on title pages, book covers and magazine mastheads. Although geometric letterforms were promoted by the Fascist regime, which cunningly embraced the most advanced art deco trends in architecture and graphics, they were popular across all levels of Italian society. They were not perceived as representative of the regime and remained in use well into the 1960s.1
Moreover, Italian makers of wood type (xilografie tipografiche) were capable of producing types as small as two lines (24 points), which were significantly more economical for printers compared to their metal typefounding counterparts. Wood types of small sizes were typically sold in miniature cabinets, each containing six cases of different designs of types, and some of them have survived. They likely took a sizeable share of the market away from metal types because they were more affordable. Contrary to the complexities and expenses of matrix-making and typefounding, wood-type manufacture was easier, simpler and much cheaper. Consequently, wood-type makers were more daring in developing new experimental designs than type foundries, which traditionally tended to be more cautious to avoid the risk of low sales.
Modernist-type revivals for contemporary users
While Luca Lattuga will be explaining all this and much more in his book Alfabeti Modernisti Italiani (to be published by Lazy Dog Press), CAST has decided to accompany Luca on his journey of discovering these forgotten types, and create digital revivals of the best designs he has uncovered. The revivals are produced by a team of designers (selected members and collaborators of CAST) and are part of ‘Alfabeti Modernisti’ – our brand new type collection.
For each type Luca has assembled some superb specimens of the biggest sizes and to achieve the sharpest impression, he printed them on coated paper. Our guiding principle for design has been maximum respect for the sources. However, in some cases we standardised the design parameters and design features to achieve a more consistent alphabet. Nonetheless, our revivals are true to their original nature and work as display typefaces in line with the expectations of today’s discriminating users.2
- This is clear, for instance, in several monuments built after the Second World War all over Italy to celebrate partisans killed by the Nazis and Fascists, with lettering that was exactly the same as that of the 1930s. ↩︎
- Some design flaws are hardly, or not at all, noticeable in wood-type printing, but do show up in the digital environment. In a digital font, inconsistencies of proportion, spacing, casual differences in stroke widths (to name the most common problems with these wood types) would be emphasised and undermine the entire design. ↩︎