Alfa-Beta: The Study and Design of Type
Aldo Novarese (1920–1995) achieved worldwide renown for his extraordinary typefaces. Alfa-Beta reviews the evolution of writing systems and typography from their advent up to the publication of the first edition in 1964. The book showcases a very specific point of view: it is one of very few works on the history of type originally written in Italian, and one of even fewer to have been written by a practicing designer rather than a historian or academic. This edition features four new introductory essays contextualizing the book's original release, highlighting its current relevance, and describing the editorial logic guiding the reissue and its translation.