Razzia Type take the Didone genre to the next level with their high-contrast sans serif RT Vitrine

“A ‘vitrine’ is defined as a glass showcase to display significant content to an audience looking through it,” Razzia Type’s Mirco Schiavone tells us, recalling the naming choice behind their high-contrast display sans serif typeface, RT Vitrine. “The name serves as an analogy to the ‘see-through quality’ attributed to display Didones,” he continues, with the elegant typeface originating from an exploration into the Didone genre through early sketches in 2020. Inspired by EYE No.65’s ‘Through thick and thin: Fashion and type’ article by Abbott Miller, which highlights the elegant theme of translucency shared by Didone typefaces and high fashion, Schiavone took to reimaging the typeface style by removing the weight of stroke endings completely. “RT Vitrine makes this quality its core idea,” Razzia Type concludes, “and takes it to the next level through extreme formal reduction.” As such, RT Vitrine’s unornamented construction makes for a distinctive typographic rhythm, presenting a tranquil, unfussy character across its hairline horizontal strokes that celebrates the contrast it inhabits and the awe of simplicity. Despite RT Vitrine’s minimalist driving force, the power and comprehension of the typeface itself are far from nominal, available now in nine weights with corresponding italics and a shed-load of alternative letterforms. From swashed, alternate, old style, lining, tabular and circular figures to super and subscript, fractions and stylistic sets, RT Virtine not only challenges the Didone genre but brings a prolific body of typographic substance to it.