Caractères

Typeface Manufacturing for Typewriters in Switzerland, 1941–1997

Between the 1940s and 1990s, three Swiss companies manufactured typefaces for typewriters: Caractères SA, Setag, and Novatype. For over fifty years, they supplied some of the most important office machine producers in Europe and worldwide, such as Remington, IBM, Olivetti, Paillard-Hermes, and Triumph-Adler.

These three companies, which held a dominant position in the global market, played an essential role in the creation, development, and manufacturing of typefaces and scripts for typewriters, as well as for all types of impact printers. The characteristic aesthetics of typewriter scripts hold a significant place in the current typographic scene.

Through detailed portraits of Caractères SA, Setag, and Novatype, this publication aims to revisit the historical and technological context inherent to these scripts and allows for a better understanding of the global impact type industry. When the three Swiss factories closed in the 1990s, most of their archives were destroyed. Consequently, this study quickly transformed into a very detailed investigation aimed at documenting this period of history using primary sources. Gathering information and documents scattered in numerous places, this work reveals never-before-seen images and sheds light on a little-known chapter of industrial and typographic history, both locally and internationally.