Impact Type

Between the 1940s and 1990s, three companies from Northwestern Switzerland—Caractères SA, Setag, and Novatype—produced typefaces for typewriters, supplying major office machine manufacturers across Europe and the world, including IBM, Remington, Olivetti, Paillard-Hermès, and Triumph-Adler. For over fifty years, these companies played a leading role in designing, developing, and manufacturing type components and typefaces for typewriters and other impact printers.

The visually distinctive typefaces they created continue to influence today’s typographic scene. This richly illustrated book presents detailed portraits of Caractères SA, Setag, and Novatype, exploring the history of their typefaces and the historical context in which they were produced. With many archives destroyed when the companies closed in the 1990s, the publication brings together years of research, previously unpublished images, and documents to shed light on this lesser-known chapter of industrial and typographic history, both locally and internationally.