Albiter - Dante typeface

Dante

“The roman types that were designed in Italy in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and those that have since followed their style” are referred to as the old style typefaces. Old style typefaces are “the most popular typefaces for setting text.” The main “features of old-style types are the slight contrast between the thick and thin strokes of the characters and an oblique stress (evident in the thin parts of the o, which are offset counterclockwise from the top and bottom of the letter).”

Dante is an old-style typeface that was designed by Giovanni Mardersteig and Charles Malin in 1954. Mardersteig “started working on Dante after [WWII]… at the Officina Bodoni” in Italy. “For Dante, [Mardersteig and Malin] worked closely to develop a design that was easy to read. For example, special care was taken with the design of the serifs and top curves of the lowercase to create a subtle horizontal stress, which helps the eye move smoothly across the page.” “After six years of work, [Dante] was first used in 1955 to publish Boccaccio's Trattatello in Laude di Dante hence the typeface name.”

In the mid-1950s, Dante was first created in metal type; it was originally “impressed into paper - not onto it” (Monotype Imaging). Giovanni Mardersteig and Charles Malin collaborated to design Dante. Mardersteig was born Hans Mardersteig on January 8, 1892 in Weimar, Germany. He was a printer and typographer; he created books, “exemplifying the highest standards in the art of printing,” for Officina Bodoni (Encyclopædia Britannica). He spent a year in Scotland where he designed the typeface Fontana while working for Collins Cleartype Press. When he returned to Italy, he set up Officina Bodoni again in Verona. This “press specialized in small editions, printed with meticulous care on an old-fashioned handpress that occupied a room in his house. In addition to Fontana, he also designed the typefaces Dante, Griffo, and Zeno” (Encyclopædia Britannica). Mardersteig died on December 27, 1977 in Verona, Italy.

Charles Malin was a punchcutter from France. He collaborated with Mardersteig to design the typeface Dante. They began designing it after WWII, however, Malin died in 1955 before Dante’s successful released in 1957.

My concept/theme for the type specimen book is Dante's Inferno. I will cover the different levels of hell that are covered in the book/movie; going deeper in to hell. I will make the book look creepy with the different levels of hell as its setting.