Serie 610 is an all-caps typeface with a striking feature: all letters and glyphs are divided into an upper black half and a lower white half on a black band. In keeping with the Art Deco tendency of the 1930s, the letterforms are based on straight lines and circles. Notable shapes are the round apex of A, the ‘horseshoe’ N, and the vertical tail of Q.
Serie 610 was produced as a wood type by Xilografia Milanese (Milan) in the 1930s, and was released in several body sizes ranging from 3 to 40 lines (roughly 36–500 points). We know that the company also manufactured typecases, miniature cabinets (containing cases of different designs of type) and other items for printers. We don’t know when the company was founded, but it advertised in the famous Campo Grafico magazine from 1936 onwards, and closed its offices in 1968.
The typeface was offered along with angled, rounded, arrowed, and forked pieces of the band to be placed at the beginning and end of titles of one or a few words. These special sorts – an idea picked up from decorative styles successfully purveyed by 19th-century typefounders – have been reproduced in the digital revival and are available through OpenType features.
‘The AM Serie 610 digital revival – assures the designer, Riccardo Olocco – is very true to the original, with virtually no modified letterforms or glyphs. Each wood letter in the original Serie 610 was produced with a thin white vertical line on the left and right sides, so that a word set in this typeface would have had a thin line between each letter. The repetition of these thin lines creates a kind of visual Larsen effect in the digital environment, and so the letters of AM Serie 610 are now all connected without lines between them. However, a version of the letters with white lines has been included as a stylistic set which can be activated via OpenType features.’
OpenType Features:
ss01 – White lines between characters
ss02 – Front and end pieces = (e); >e<; \e/; «e»