When Dinamo was invited to teach a type class in Tallinn, Estonia during the winter months of 2014, Fabian found himself as he often does in a second hand book store, thumbing through a pile of vintage children’s books. One particular title caught his eye, featuring what appeared to be a Soviet-era clone of Helvetia. The typeface’s light traps—i.e. its spiked corners stemming outwards like mutated tails—were designed to help compensate for blurring during the phototypesetting era. The children’s book displays its entire alphabet at the back; all the better for learning the ABCs for some, but in our case, all the better for the task of digitization.
