Grotesque, attractive and no-frills, the Stadio font came to life in 1974 at the hands of Aldo Novarese-a multifaceted artist and author of countless typeface families born in Pontestura-and was published the following year by Reber R41 as a rub-on transfer.
The study of this font, designed especially for the company, was included in the first edition of the book The Alphabetic Sign a true guide to the study and design of typeface published in 1971.
Although it was produced in six different sizes of transferables, thanks to the high quality of Reber R41's signature products, at the analog level this font showed no striking differences between one size and another, thus preserving its original form.
Why dwell on this little-known typeface?
After all, "it's just" an extra bold sans serif with funny curves and reverse contrast.
In fact, this font features a striking design that inevitably attracts attention:
its horizontal strokes are deliberately thicker than its vertical ones, thus offering easier reading and being graphically appealing to the most experienced eyes.
Its name-which literally means "soccer stadium"-refers to its brash and sturdy yet well-proportioned forms that are inevitably reminiscent of the imposing buildings deputed to sports and appeals to the most athletic performers.
Stadio is made of letters with unusual and playful shapes, composed of slightly tapered stems that together create a stunning dynamism, a typeface designed for those minds outside the box.
Over time, in fact, this font has met with no small amount of success and has been imitated in a variety of ways, creating veritable "Stadio fakes" found in the shop sections of many type foundries.
In recent years Stadio has attracted interest from foundries and graphic designers, deservedly taking its place on the list of the most famous fonts designed by Novarese.
In 2019, type Foundry Zetafonts - a Florentine digital foundry - eager to be able to work on an original font by Aldo Novarese soon discovered how Reber R41 was the printing company that owned most of the font collection of the Piedmontese type designer.
After locating in The Alphabetical Sign among all fonts the Stadio and requesting permission from the Treviso-based company to work on a new version of this font - granted by special agreement - on the occasion of Novarese's 100th anniversary Zetafonts launched in 2020 the revival of this font as bizarre as it is fun.
Renamed as Stadio Now, it has been expanded into a versatile multi-weight family, where its reverse-contrast design space can be enlarged and decreased.
In 2021 the family of this font grows again with a devanagari version declined in five weights named Stadio Deva.
The Florentine foundry did more than just revival by involving the Italian graphic design community in the Stadio Cup, Italy's first cup of soccer poster designs made with this quirky font.
You can find Stadio and all the other timeless fonts in the Aldo Novarese Collection on the Reber R41 website along with all its other products, synonymous with excellence and high quality.
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