Narva Partylicht (1977 and 1987)
Two generations of packaging for a set of party lights produced by Narva, the nationally-owned manufacturer of light bulbs and other illuminants in the German Democratic Republic, AKA East Germany.
The older box from 1977 features a chromatic use of Expressa Color Line. This multiline face was made in or before 1971 at Brendel / Typeshop in West Germany, apparently modeled after Filmsense by Push Pin Studios. It was also distributed by French phototype supplier Hollenstein.
A decade later, Narva’s party lights came in a new box design with Blippo Black. With the white lowercase letters and the blue border, it resembles the packages by West German toy manufacturer Playmobil.
The Narva brand has been continued after the end of the GDR in 1990. It still uses the old logo with the wide blocky caps. Unfortunately, the letterforms in the digitized version are even clumsier than they used to be. Side note: The Narva Tower in Berlin is a contender for first high-rise in Germany. It was built in 1906–12 and houses the BASF offices today.
Like many items printed in the GDR, the enclosed certificate of guarantee looks like it is from the 1950s, or even older. In fact, it is letterpress-printed, but wasn’t issued any earlier than 1987. The fonts in use are a version of Neue Moderne Grotesk / Aurora-Grotesk I–IV fett (first cast in 1909, also carried by Schriftguss in Dresden as Neptun, and later listed under the generic name Grotesk in an early Typoart specimen) and Super-Grotesk (1930).
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See also the box design for a similar product from West Germany: