Aldo Novarese (29 June 1920 – 16 September 1995) was an Italian
type designer
Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below.
A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...
who lived and worked mostly in
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...
.
Training and career
Born in 1920, he entered the G.B. Paravia Typographic School in Turin, where he obtained a diploma. In 1935 he joined the Design Studio of The Nebiolo Foundry in Turin where he collaborated with
Alessandro Butti
Alessandro Butti (b. 1893 – d. 1959 in Turin) was an Italian type designer who lived and worked mostly in Turin where he was art director of the Nebiolo type foundry. He also taught at the Scuola Vigliani-Paravia. Microgramma is his most f ...
on faces such as Athenaeum, Quirinus, Normandia, Augustea, Microgramma, Fluidum and Rondine. In 1952, giorni in recognition of his uncommon talent he was appointed Director of
Nebiolo Art Studio. Since then he designed many new typefaces, among others Cigno, Egizio, Ritmo, Fontanesi, Juliet, Slogan, Garaldus and Recta.
At the Scuola Tipografica in Turin, where he taught drawing from 1949 to 1953, he started a class for the study of typefaces, with the aim of intensifying research work about the ancient Italian tradition in typeface design.
Aldo Novarese published an Italian classification of typefaces which he presented at the “Ecole de Lure”. This classification defines ten basic styles, in which The many thousand faces of the western world may be grouped. This work, which deserved the favourable opinion of the international criticism, illustrates the Italian viewpoint on such a long-debated subject.
Aldo Novarese retired from
Nebiolo in 1972 and spent almost two years as a consultant o
Reber R41 dry transfer producer; after that period, while keeping his close relationship with Reber R41 he started his career as a freelance type designer and worked all over the world for important companies such as Tygra, ITC, VCG, Mecanorma, Berthold.
He also wrote two important didactic books: Alfabeta in 1964 and Il Segno Alfabetico in 1971.
Fonts designed by Aldo Novarese
Novarese designed more than a hundred typefaces, at the beginning for the
Fonderia Nebiolo in Turin -Italy, then for dry transfer companies such as Reber R41 and Mecanorma, phototype industries and traditional Foundries such VCG, ITC Tygra, Berthold and more. One of his most famous designs is probably
Eurostile
Eurostile is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Aldo Novarese in 1962. Novarese created Eurostile for one of the best-known Italian foundries, Nebiolo, in Turin.
Novarese developed Eurostile to succeed the similar Microgramma, which ...
, a geometric sans-serif design. It utilized shapes based on subtly curved rectangles with rounded corners, reflecting the modern designs that were gaining popularity at the time, influenced by the subtly curved shape of a
cathode ray tube screen or aeroplane windows. It became very popular as a typeface that evokes technology (it can be seen on the speedometers on many cars and vehicles, particularly older models). This was an expansion and development of the earlier design
Microgramma typeface (designed in a project led by
Alessandro Butti
Alessandro Butti (b. 1893 – d. 1959 in Turin) was an Italian type designer who lived and worked mostly in Turin where he was art director of the Nebiolo type foundry. He also taught at the Scuola Vigliani-Paravia. Microgramma is his most f ...
), an all-caps design.
Foundry Type for Nebiolo
Photo-Type
References
*Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. ''The Encyclopedia of Type Faces.'' Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983. .
*Friedl, Ott, and Stein, ''Typography: an Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Throughout History.'' Black Dog & Levinthal Publishers: 1998. .
Font Designer - Aldo Novarese- A French website about Aldo Novarese
Identifont: Aldo Novarese (1920-1995)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Novarese, Aldo
1920 births
1995 deaths
Italian graphic designers
Italian typographers and type designers