Typeface Design for Lettera Mono

Golf ball typewriter typeface recovered from a single specimen sheet

An authorised digital re-issue of a typeface Josef Müller-Brockmann designed for Olivetti in 1968, originally produced in the early 1970s as Candia and Livius for the Lexikon 82/83 type ball machines. Kobi Benezri's initial digital interpretation was developed for the 2008 Phaidon anthology Area 2, drawing from a single specimen sheet encountered during work on a Müller-Brockmann monograph. Post-2012 archival research at Olivetti's Ivrea facility and Müller-Brockmann's Zurich estate informed a thorough overhaul, resulting in a re-issue in 2019. Font engineering and mastering was handled by Alphabet, Berlin.

Set in Lettera Mono

Insights

The initial digital version relied on a single specimen sheet of one cut; archival research later revealed two distinct source groups—Müller-Brockmann's sketches and Olivetti's engineering drawings—which showed how the original design was modified in production.
Müller-Brockmann's sketches indicated he was adapting a version of Akzidenz Grotesk for typewriter use; Olivetti's technical drawings from Ivrea documented the engineers' subsequent modifications.
After the 2008 release, the family was extended to six weights with matching italics.
The original Olivetti production typeface later became available for daisy wheel machines, beyond the type ball machines it was first made for.