Animo and Imprenta Nueva

This is a topic that is close to our hearts. It has grown out of the years Jan Horčík spent in Spain, observing street life across its cities and noticing, almost immediately, that visual pollution there was significantly less overwhelming than in Prague. For us, arriving with a point of comparison, the difference was hard to ignore. For many Spanish locals, it was simply the norm, though the pandemic years have begun to shift that balance. So this article will introduce you to the world of handcrafted signage, typographic folk craftsmanship, and a quiet, disappearing discipline that shaped our typeface Animo. We designed it in direct dialogue with these signs and boards, that deliberately work even with the imperfections created by makers who never formally studied type design. Our aim was not only to soak in the beauty of imperfection, but also to return that inspiration to where it came from.

Last year we released Animo, a typeface inspired by Spain’s signage heritage, where letterforms were reproduced, scaled, and often altered through processes that gradually distanced them from their original shapes.

We returned to Palma de Mallorca to visit Imprenta Nueva Balear, now the island’s oldest operating printing press, where we sat down with Roberto Aguiló Sr. (b. 1945) and Roberto Aguiló Jr. (b. 1975), who speak from five generations of making. Founded in 1927 by their great-great-grandfather, the press has moved through lithography, photographic processes, and into digital production.

What began as a technical inquiry into pantographs, Plexiglas, photocopy distortion, and cut plastic letters expanded into a broader account of transition, including shifts in local industry, evolving forms of expertise, and a changing visual landscape shaped by faster, more standardised, and more widely accessible production methods. The typeface Animo was developed from this context, and the interview addresses it from both a technical and historical perspective.

Could you briefly tell us how Imprenta Nueva Balear began and how it has evolved to the present day?

R. JR.    The press actually began with the business failure of some men who had come to Mallorca to set up playing-card manufacturing. My great-grandfather started the business afterwards.

R. SR.    It's special that people like you take an interest in a business we've been running for so long. Yes, it was my grandfather — an engineer at GESA, the Gas and Lighting Mallorcan Electricity Company. He saw an opportunity and acquired the business with partners. After acquiring the company, he went on to conceive the building we are in today, which dates back to 1927.

Was it the first printing press on the island?

R. SR.    The oldest was the Guasch Press, which had more than 300 years of history. But it closed, and this one, which is still active, is now the oldest operating press on the island. The building was designed by architect Guillem Forteza specifically to house a printing press. The windows are large enough for machines to be moved through, and it was planned to be very bright, because lighting was essential.

R. JR.    Originally, we were a lithographic press. Next to this area there was a lithographic stone press; today we only have a photograph of it. As you can see from what is written on our façade, Imprenta Litográfica. The commissions taken on here were not ordinary jobs. Those craftsmen who carried out such meticulous work were among the few people capable of it, and they came, originally, from weapons manufacturing.

R. SR.    One of the most important changes we made was adapting photographic processes to the graphic industry. We had a Repromaster, a reproduction camera, which captured separate images for each colour. The composition was assembled, photographed, and its proportions adjusted manually. You could reduce something very large or enlarge something very small.

I set up a darkroom for the entire photographic process, which my son later dismantled, because the transition from photography to digital was his generation's thing. I went through the whole analogue process, and was only present at the very first beginnings of digital.

R. JR.    While we were working with analogue photography, the personal computer arrived. Today it is plotters and digital printing, better, faster and more reliable. But reliability is not the same as quality. You can have a 1940s sign and a modern plotter print of the same design, and you might prefer the 1940s one.

As external visitors we perceive a strong typographic heritage in Palma's old signs — traditional signs for restaurants, shops, workshops and small institutions whose design is fundamentally functional but retains unique aesthetic qualities. From your perspective as local professionals: do you also perceive that heritage, or has it become so commonplace that many people can't see it anymore?

R. SR.    I think few people are able to appreciate it. But this study you present seems extremely interesting to me. Before modern digital processes, there was a tool called the pantograph that all workshops used — a set of articulated rods that allowed you to copy drawings at different scales. You'd place a small letter, pass it over the device and it would reproduce it larger on another sheet. Then you'd trace it, cut it out and have a letter ready to use on a sign. The pantograph was common in all workshops that made illuminated signs. There was also a relationship between those who made illuminated signs and companies that manufactured glass and neon — you had a neon tube and with a template you applied heat to shape the letter. These neons were fashionable, but they were a copy of what was done in North America. Everything came from there. Most of the movable type that arrived in Spain came from American newspaper presses that were renewing their equipment. They copied from each other, everywhere.

Historically, each region often relied on a local specialist who produced these signs How did that system work in Mallorca?

R. SR.    There were several small workshops dedicated to this — three or four, I believe. They were completely artisanal. They had machines for folding, metal wire, tools for binding materials — rudimentary. The craftsmen trained at the schools of the time but many left, being demotivated, or finding it hard to learn. Most were self-taught. It was a time when what was produced had to last a very long time.

R. JR.    We lost our industry from the moment companies moved production overseas — we provided the technology and outsourced the manufacture. And now Europe has lost the technology too. When you lose technology you get left behind, and recovering what we lost years ago is impossible.

Signmakers used type catalogues, photographed letterforms and enlarged them repeatedly until they reached the desired size. Those enlargements introduced distortions, giving rise to unique letters that no longer resembled the original models — Futura, Helvetica, etc. It looks as if someone had drawn them from memory. Do you have a professional explanation for why signs ended up with that appearance?

R. SR.    As there were no wooden types in the sizes we needed, we photocopied and enlarged until we reached the desired scale. The photocopy distorts, always. When you enlarge more than 200% you lose scalability — you'll never see letters identical because the inside of one may be narrower or wider than another. Those imperfections have an influence. From there you had two options: install the letter as extracorporeal — in three-dimensional volume, creating the body of the letter; or screen-print it on a sheet of plastic.

R. JR.    With the Repromaster you could also force a perspective on the photocopy — make a letter thinner at one point and thicker at another. You'd place the original crooked and play with perspective. That's how you manipulated the original typeface.

Many signs show a common creativity where missing letters were improvised — for example using an inverted 'N' as a 'Z', or hand-carved substitutions. Were there templates or rules for letter shapes? How were those improvisations resolved?

R. SR.    If I came to you and said: I like these letters — but my name contains letters that aren't in the specimen — what do I do? I would have to draw them by hand. When you come to a press you find a type specimen book with every alphabet. You can photocopy and enlarge whatever you like. But when you increase a letter's size the distances change and you lose proportion. It's no longer the original typeface — it becomes something else.

R. JR.    That is exactly what produces the visual quality we see in those old signs. Someone with talent but no formal type training makes something with ten imperfections — and yet it works. You have a letter specimen with Futura, you completely mangle it according to your own instinct, and what comes out is something new. That is the folk creativity this project is about.

How and why did Plexiglas begin to be used for individually cut letters? Was it for aesthetic reasons, durability, material availability — or something else?

R. SR.    The reason was durability. People wanted their sign to last as long as possible and the aim was clear: avoid wood. In those days everything made of wood would rot. Plastic arrived and invaded everything — it became fashionable. But it was purely functional, not aesthetic.

We have observed recurring colour patterns in signs: workshops and garages tend to use red; greengrocers green or burgundy; pharmacies green. Did those colour decisions respond to formal rules, local custom, or simply the colours available?

R. JR.    I'd say that responds to the limitation of available colours at the time. In those days there were only six: green, blue, black, red, yellow and orange. The client was told: you choose; if it suits you, fine; if not, too bad. Everything was very bureaucratic. You want a sign? It follows these rules. There wasn't a creative side.

R. SR.    You'd go to the Plexiglas factory and choose from six colours — not forty like now. If someone wanted a paler tone the solution was to put a stronger light behind it. In the end economics prevailed. 
Interestingly, the colour that stands out most from a distance is orange — it has the highest colour temperature. And Mallorca's colour temperature is modified by being surrounded by water. That's why certain blues don't read well here outdoors. When signs were made, people considered that they'd be seen from 30 or 40 metres.

Before the pandemic we documented signs in urban centres and rural areas. After many historic businesses closed, original signs were replaced by low-quality ones — stock images, poor typographic choices, garish palettes. Do you think the aesthetic quality of commercial signage has deteriorated?

R. SR.    I think so. Today there's 'comfortable' signage: print an adhesive with the plotter and stick it on a surface. No artisanal work behind it. People think the most important thing is to have a sign brighter than the neighbour's to attract customers — that prevails.

R. JR.    Signmakers, in my experience, don't think about the city. That's why they had to establish an ordinance in Palma's centre — everything must follow an aesthetic and obtain prior approval from the town hall. There's been chaos until now. And since the pandemic we've lost diversity. The centre of Palma is full of ice-cream shops: a profitable business that attracts tourists, yes — but I think the town hall should evaluate who truly adds value to a city and who does not. Culture makes a city attractive to tourism — it's not just 'sun and beach'. What you've done with Ánimo is a reading of Palma at the level of typographic legacy. It's like reading the city typographically. Before, Palma was represented like this. Making that legible for other designers is exactly what was needed.