Riveting Typography from Alfold Magazine

Last year, we came across a copy of Alfold magazine, printed in the city of Subotica, Serbia, in 1936. There are a few fascinating things about it, from the fact that it was found in my father's house attic to the fact that it has a whole spread on the latest Hindenburg zeppelin — before its crash a year later.

Above all, the typography and fonts of that time were fascinating. It was right around the time when type became cheap and affordable, so magazine pages became battlefields on which local businesses competed for the readers' attention using, well, nothing more and nothing less than fonts. Something is endearing about pre-war vintage typography, especially in publications that weren't large or international. Local businesses are on one page, and your usual snake oil salesmen are on the next. Throw in all sorts of ornamental borders, vignettes, worn-off typefaces, and wonky layouts — and you get the typographic experience of Alfold. 

Here are a few spreads from the magazine that best describe the time's typographic mood. Mind you, despite its versatility, it's a relatively small magazine printed in a town with a population of around 50,000 in 1936. We cherish this curious find at the studio and hope for opportunities to work on revival versions of some of these fonts in the future.

↑ Alfold, June 1936
↗ Ad for Centralna Knjižara (Central Bookstore)

↑ Advertising spreads from Alfold magazine

↑ News story with photographs
↑ Advertising spread from Alfold magazine

↑ Ad for Centralna Knjižara (Central Bookstore)

↑ Selection of Ads and Letterings

We, however, are more excited about the versatility of vintage fonts found in Alfold. This selection of clippings above has it all: commercial fonts, hand painted letterings, idiosyncratic typesetting and unique layouts. We hope to be able to draw from these references in the future and add a couple of Alfold-inspired typefaces to our type library.