House Type
During my first week in São Paulo last July, I couldn’t help but notice how so many residential buildings in São Paulo had their names set in the same typeface. I found it really intriguing, and it also reminded me of a blogpost architecture critic and D-crit teacher Alexandra Lange had written a few days earlier about house numbers in her Brooklyn neighborhood. I failed to take any photos of the said typeface during that week or on my second visit to the city. But when I came back to São Paulo last November, I made sure I took as many photos as I could of names, numbers and stylish building entrances in the Jardins and Higienópolis neighborhoods. There are a few more photos after the jump. For more, visit the set on my Flickr page. If you know what this typeface is or why it’s São Paulo’s typeface of choice, I’d love to find out. Feel free to comment or write me at frederico[at]05031979.net.
In perhaps a nod to this tradition, Livraria da Vila uses the same typeface for its identity (here on Isay Weinfeld’s Alameda Lorena building in Jardins)
August 25th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
the lettering always reminded me of a thing called “normógrafo” (don’t know how it should be called in english). The “normógrafo” was a device used by draughtsmen to standardize the typeface of their drawings. The shape of the letters (not actually a “typeface”, as it was not printed) was defined, as long as I know, by parameters set by technical standards issued by brazilian standards association (abnt, similar to ansi). These standards were inspired by the ones issued by DIN. However, the “normógrafos” weren’t produced with the “DIN” typeface.
the typefaces Avenir (to some extent) and Burin Sans seem to by inspired by those letterings (except for the lowercase “a”, which had only one store in the old “normógrafos”).
August 25th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Thanks so much Gabriel. Actually today, trying to find a match for a typeface used on a letterhead from a coffee grower in 1960s Angola, I found ITC Blair to be the closest. http://www.paratype.com/fstore/default.asp?fcode=554&letter=B
Little did I know, or rather, remember, it was exactly the same typeface used in these buildings…
August 26th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
interesting
I found another typeface inspired by those old “normografos”: http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/btn/register-sans-btn/ (except for the upperface “J”).
August 26th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
here are the “normografos” I was talking about: http://www.leadholder.com/lh-thin-ke-leroy.html