Assab was produced as a wood type by Xilografia Ruggero Zuliani & C. (Verona) in the early 1930s, when the company changed its name to Xilografia di Verona. Ruggero Zuliani must have been an important character in the wood type industry of the time, as he is also recorded as a director of Xilografia Italiana (Badia Polesine, near Verona) in its early years. We are sure that Luca Lattuga’s research will shed some light on this important chapter of Italian vernacular typography.

Assab interpreted the counterless sanserifs of the 1930s, a style of lettering popular in Italy in the growing field of advertising. It was a powerful expression of both Modernism and the Fascist regime, which used cutting-edge graphics of the time as corporate design. This kind of letterforms were incorporated into Fortunato Depero’s special variations of sanserifs and used in all kinds of graphic works. Baby Teeth, designed by Milton Glaser in 1964 for his famous Dylan record cover, can be considered the most famous heir of Assab and the counterless sans of the 1930s.

Courtesy of Luca Lattuga

The AM Assab digital revival stays remarkably close to the original. The designer, Alessandro Bombieri says: ‘All the shapes have been rectified to polish up the roughness of the wooden letters and an alternative S has been added. In fact, the peculiar shape of S (two semicircles on top of each other) and the elementary design of the other Assab letters create small overlaps in letter combinations such as ST, SZ and LS. Barely noticeable in wood type printing, these overlaps can actually be avoided in the digital environment thanks to this new alternate S.’