Stadio Now is the revival of a original design by Aldo Novarese for dry transfer brand R41, published in 1974. The original typeface, is an extra bold grotesque sans serif that is notable for its reverse contrast, with the horizontal lines being thicker than the vertical. This style, historically called “Italian”, result in a dramatic effect, in which the letters look slightly odd. In his never-ending quest for interesting letterforms, [...] Stadio Now is the revival of a original design by Aldo Novarese for dry transfer brand R41, published in 1974. The original typeface, is an extra bold grotesque sans serif that is notable for its reverse contrast, with the horizontal lines being thicker than the vertical. This style, historically called “Italian”, result in a dramatic effect, in which the letters look slightly odd. In his never-ending quest for interesting letterforms, Novarese was intrigued by this style and created some successful and interesting variations on the idea, from the calligraphic slab Estro to the sci-fi Sintex.
In his book Il Segno Alfabetico Novarese described Stadio as a “decorative display typeface, in the so-called nineteenth century ‘Italian’ style, but sans serif. Horizontal proportions have been visibly enlarged, offering a very intriguing graphic effect”. Published in 2021 with a prerelease version offered in occasion of Novarese’s 100th birth anniversary, Stadio Now expands the original design into a multi-weight versatile family, with text and display variants and a variable version to fully explore its reverse contrast design space.
In autumn 2021 the family was expanded with the inclusion of Stadio Deva, a devanagari version of the typeface in five weights, available exclusively on Canva.com.
Stadio Now • 26 styles + variable
