The fonts in this pack are created from letterforms found in a couple of publications associated with the Spanish Civil War era feminist communist organization Agrupación de Mujeres Antifascistas (AMA).
I based the first font on a small hand-drawn inner-page headline (on the right, below) that appeared in Mujeres- Revista Mensual del Comité Nacional de Mujeres Antifascistas, a monthly publication of the Valencia AMA.
Slab serif fonts were especially popular in Spanish graphic design from that era and this particular slab serif really stuck to me as it was deliciously irregular. It has a right serif off the ‘A’, a left serif off only the bottom of the ‘E’, and a left serif that appears then later disappears from the ’N’. I imagined someone attempting to make a quick headline the night before everything had to go to press, drawing out this text, and thinking, “Looks pretty good!’ I took the small selection of letterforms in this sample and constructed the rest of the alphabet (now titled Valencia AMA). This version in the font pack includes profuse alternate glyphs so you can make your own unilateral serifs point whatever direction you please. After that, I made a more consistent version (with bilateral serifs), then a sans serif version, and finally a non-oblique (upright) sans serif version; a total of four fonts in this family.
The second font I chose is a lovely and rather severe stencil font consisting of thin geometrical rectangles and gentle 90 degree curves. Modular, de/constructed, fonts like this were fairly common in avant garde art publications from this time, but it was surprising to see one pop up in a political publication. This font looks like it might have been created on a composing tray, built up by putting together smaller pieces of cast metal type. This came from the inner pages of the Bilbao AMA magazine–Mujeres: Organo del Comité Mujeres Contra la Guerra Imperialista y el Fascismo (this publication also had a spectacular and electrifying masthead which I will post at the bottom of the page).
The revolutionaries in the Spanish Civil War had a staggering degree of talent across all aspects of the graphics arts–especially so in illustration and typography, samples of which are rather hard to find outside of the region. I’ll be digging up and adapting more fonts from publications from this era (Mujeres, Mujeres Libres, Pasionaria) over the next couple months.
-Icky
The attached zip file contains 5 OpenType fonts: Valencia AMA (irregular, slab, sans, upright sans) and Bilbao AMA.
(Bilbao AMA updated 2/1/24: cleaned and organized, latin diacritics added)
All fonts are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA). This Creative Commons license means that these fonts can be used, shared, and adapted; attributed when appropriate; and any adaptations must fall under the same license. This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
These fonts can be used for activist projects of all sorts. These fonts can be used for liberatory social and cultural productions. These fonts are not for sale and must be shared freely.
These fonts are part of the Justseeds Open Type Project.
Justseeds Opens Type Project fonts are free! If you use fonts from the Justseeds Open Type Project and would like to donate, any donated money will go to the Justseeds general project fund. These donations help us fund art donations to political groups that are used for benefits and fundraisers, as well as special projects & site specific actions by Justseeds members and allied organizations. Any amount is appreciated. PayPal link here.
“Communism= Soviet power + electrification”
The example text for the Valencia AMA font states: “La Asociación de Mujeres Antifascistas was an anti-fascist, feminist and united front organization created in Spain in 1933 by the Communist Party, initially as the Spanish section of the International Union of Women Against War and Fascism. With various names depending on the period: Women Against War and Fascism at its inception, the Anti-Fascist Women’s Group since February 1936, and the Spanish Women’s Union or the Spanish Anti-Fascist Women’s Union during the Republican exile.
The example text for the Bilbao AMA font states: “Though the Association of Anti-Fascist Women’s orientation was Communist, its goal was to unite the largest possible number women, without distinguishing between ideologies, to join forces in the fight against Fascism.”
