AM Novecento
CAST · Alessandro Bombieri · 2024
A digital revival of a 1937 Italian wood type, retaining its all-caps geometric construction and idiosyncratic details including the slanted 'escalator S' and gondola-bow A.
About
Originally produced by Xilografia di Verona between 1937 and 1940, this all-caps sans is built from squares and circles of uniform size, yielding a consistently rounded texture despite its dark weight. Certain letters carry strong thick/thin contrast, while others take unexpected forms: H is modelled on a lowercase h, and the sharply slanted S follows a fashionable 1930s convention noted by type historian Paul Shaw. The revival includes Venezia, the decorative variant with two horizontal white lines cutting through each letter, accessible as an OpenType stylistic set.
Classification
An all-caps geometric sans of Italian 1930s origin, constructed from squares and circles with pronounced thick/thin contrast in certain letters; its display-only, woodtype heritage and idiosyncratic letterforms place it firmly in the display category rather than general-purpose sans-serif.