We have been working in the last months on various typefaces designed by Aldo Novarese in the last years of his career, after leaving Nebiolo. Many of these designs were never published as lead type, but rather sold to transfer lettering or photosetting companies. In the process he made some change to names - for example his Primate for Ag Berthold became Divulga for Reber.
In trying to map and recognize his later output, we have problems finding records of his work for VGC - typefaces like Bloc, Continental, Delta, Exempla, Rona, Poster but expecially the elusive 1978 font Global that we assume is a version of Stadio but can't confirm without a scan of the VGC specimen. I know that Luc Devroye posted the
1972 VGC specimen but I can't find online any good scan of the 1985 catalog (
referenced by Fontsinuse but not available anymore at the flickr url provided).
If anybody could help we would be extremely grateful!
Comments
Novarese career in his late years - as well as actually the whole of Nebiolo typographic heritage - got somehow lost in the fog between the eighties and the nineties. And even if these typefaces may not be all masterpieces, still there are some really beautiful gems (just think of Sintex that sparked the design process of James Edmondson's beautyful Chee) that are interesting to bring back to life, either through documentation or by revival.
Then, one could argue that a revival is also a betrayal, but that is a subject for a much longer thread...