Tipoitalia 3

Initiated by Claudio Rocha and published by the Tipoteca Italiana, the third issue of Tipoitalia is entirely dedicated to 20th-century Italian typography. Fourteen contributors collaborated with the editorial team, made up of Sandro Berra, Massimo Gonzato, Riccardo Olocco and Claudio Rocha.

Contents and contributors

The cover of TipoItalia 3 and letterpress-printed insert by Archivio Tipografico are dedicated to Alessandro Butti. Traces of his personality and work appear in the articles by Enrico Tallone and Alessandro Colizzi, but his name also reappears on many other pages of this issue. It’s hinted at in Lucio Passerini’s overview of twentieth-century Italian type, in Michele Patanè’s critique of digital versions of a few Nebiolo typefaces, as well as in Riccardo De Franceschi’s piece on Veltro. And it pops up again in the pages written by James Clough (followed by Akira Kobayashi’s contribution on the genesis of Eurostile Next), which compares Novarese’s Eurostile with Microgramma and its other somewhat squarish predecessors. For this issue of TipoItalia Clough also covers an extraordinary selection of Fascist-era wall texts in an excerpt from his recent book Signs of Italy. Our journey through twentieth-century Italy also features Fortunato Depero’s bolted book [see the article on Fonts In Use], Carlo Frassinelli’s graphic design revolution, the vicissitudes of Francesco Simoncini’s foundry (now forty years after his death), and the rationalist saga of modular type, with texts by Gianluca Camillini, Carlo Vinti, Alessio D’Ellena, and Luciano Perondi. Type design and rationalism are also discussed in Mauro Chiabrando’s article on Reggiani and his foundry, whose special series of typefaces included Triennale. Claudio Rocha, in addition to the graphic design, is also the author of a reconsideration of vintage typographic decorations and ornaments.

Typography

Rocha set the texts in many different fonts with priority given to digital versions of historical typefaces discussed in several articles. These are: TIF Balilla, Semplicità, Paganini, Palatino Nova, Palatino Sans, Monotype Dante Pro, Mefistofele, Monotype Pastonchi Pro, Veltro, Egizio, Eurostile Next, FB Forma. Other texts are dressed in some very recent original fonts such as Brevier, Zenon and Gramma by Riccardo Olocco/CAST; Dic Sans by Luciano Perondi/CAST; GFT Lespresso Sans by Giangiorgio Fuga; Font Serif and Sans (unreleased) by Michele Patanè/Monotype.