Stenberg
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Background
The boundless energy of a young revolution burst out in the arts movement known as Constructivism in the early days of the USSR, before the heavy hand of the state crushed its own most enthusiastic promoters. The brothers Vladimir and Georgii Stenberg were two of the enormously creative artists who were turning the older forms to revolutionary use, particularly in the form of printing, theatrical sets, exposition design and the Stenbergs’ most well-known work – film posters. The lettering styles used in these posters were simple, direct, almost brutally crude; they derived from revolutionary slogans and street decorations. ITC Stenberg was designed by Tagir Safeyev of ParaGraph (first in Cyrillic letters) and was based on Constructivist lettering rather than on any specific lettering by the Stenberg brothers. Like the original lettering, ITC Stenberg has no lowercase; it’s all caps and small caps, for the authoritative voice of exhortation. Safeyev designed a bold and an inline version – both very common forms in the posters of the Bolshevik ’20s.