Lettera, Teufen / Arthur Niggli, reissue of the first collection, 1972

Under the title Lettera, the Swiss publishing house Teufen/Arthur Niggli has been offering collections of letters and characters intended to invigorate typographic culture during 20 years. The main contractors are Armin Haab (1919-1991) and Alex Stocker (1926-1954), the latter replaced by Walter Haettenschweiler (1933-2014), from number 2.

Haab justified his initiative as follows: “Advertising production has developed in a reckless manner. Our era, which lives only on speed, hardly leaves the creator time to design new characters. Rationalization imposes its law. On the other hand, typographic composition has taken a large part in modern graphics, which provides, to those who use the characters, the proofs, the desired lines and they only have to order them. (…) Certainly we were aware that such a choice, essentially composed of ornamental solutions, would go against the “graphic coldness” currently so widespread (…) the most deliberate of coldnesses cannot completely close itself to the charm of exoticism.”

Document: Archives Signes