Editorial
First collection of SuperTipo combining figures
Super-Veloz: Modernism, in the spanish way
SuperVeloz, by catalan printer Joan Trochut, was a whole type system that gave solution to printers work. It enhaced the resources that a small printer had at that time. Super TipoVeloz helped to improve visual graphics in little commercial prints such as letterheads, bussiness cards, mag advertising and product catalogs.
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By the end of 19th century, it was not a strange practice in the small spanish printing offices that type composers would modify typefaces with the help of a knife and a file, in order to get some kind of "original" new faces by altering the original shapes.
During the 20's, probably influenced by these craft practices, it was commercialized a set of 'geometric figures' as metal compounding shapes (circles, squares, triangles...) that allowed printers design logotypes and letterheads.
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In the face of the remarkable development of advertising during the 30's in Spain, more notable in Barcelona, the small printers encountered themselves with a strong lack of resources in order to solve with originality the commission work.
Among these printers worried about the dignity of the simple, day to day, printer's work was Esteban Trochut Bachmann, father of Joan Trochut and a standing printer in Barcelona.
Concerned about the quality of the small printed matter, Esteban Trochut edited a series of albums where to put into practice his personal way to understand the use of type. The ADAM albums (Archivo Documentario de Arte Moderno), published in both Castilian and French languages, focused on type as a decorative element as well as a conveyor of information. The ADAM albums had the aim to encourage profesionals to use type creatively. They were conceived to "practice and rational modernize the art of typography", in the editor words.
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Joan Trochut was also aware about the increasing need for originality (but at low costs) when designing printed matters.
Perhaps taking into account those 'geometric figures' widely used in Spain at that time, he worked on the idea of creating a typeface system that could be used not only for composing
display text but as a drawing device.
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SuperTipo samples
as featured in NOVADAM IV (1952)
Fundición Tipográfica Iranzo promotional leaflet.
Joan Truchut describes his type system as a typeface "strictly integral". It really conceives typography to its modular original concept. With SuperTipo a piece of metal does not refers to a character but a part of it. Different characters can be build combining diferent pieces of SuperTipo Veloz: Principal stems where "secondary figures" are added (more than 200 diferent designs).
Versatility of this system allowed printers develope their ideas without the constraints when working with pieces of lead type.
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Continuing with the edition of albums where to improve the quality of type practices, both Trochut —father and son— edited four NOVADAM albums that were published from 1936 to 1952. The new ADAM series, were a kind of source books where to feature the use of Trochut typefaces. The third album published in 1948 and the last one in 1952 promotes and divulges the use of SuperTipo veloz. They're of great beauty and includes very interesting texts that expose thoughts on typography, quite influenced by the ideas of early modernism.
These albums —real manuals of "how to use"— that were given for free to every printer that had purchased the SuperTipo collection, could also be seen as Trochut, —both Joan and Esteban— personal manifesto on type and typography. Practice and theory of a real type solution that could only be understand and get its genuine sense in those hard post-war years of 1942.
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Andreu Balius
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(SuperTipo is available through typerepublic!)
from NOVADAM IV (fall 1952)
Bibliography:
Satué, Enric
Eskenazi, Mario
SuperTipo Veloz. Un sistema tipográfico para el pequeño impresor.
Cuadernos de Comunicación 1. Barcelona, 1989
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Martínez Sicluna, V.
Teoría y práctica de la Tipografía.
Gustavo Gili. Barcelona, 1945
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Trochut, Joan y Esteban
NOVADAM (vol. 1, 2, 3 y 4)
Sadag. Barcelona.
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Trochut, Joan y Esteban
ABUNDANCIA (catalog)
Barcelona (1950's).