Flash
BUYLEAD VERSION
- Designer
- Enric Crous-Vidal
- Foundry
- Bauersche Giesserei
(Bauer Types) - Year
- 1953
DIGITAL VERSION
- Publisher
- Bauer Types
- Digitalisation
- Neufville Digital
- Year
- 2007
DESCRIPTION
Flash is a three-dimensional display typeface characterized by bold, sculptural letterforms that generate strong optical depth and relief effects. Its dynamic construction creates a strong sense of movement and visual intensity, making it especially effective for headlines, posters, and expressive graphic compositions where typography plays a leading role.
Flash includes distinctive stylistic features, such as alternative versions of the capital “O,” one of them defined by a sharp 45° angle, reinforcing its unconventional and energetic character. Digitally revived from the original design, Flash ND preserves the boldness and sculptural quality of the metal type, offering designers a typeface that combines historical experimentation with contemporary expressive power.
WoOD
Wood engraving brought
image and text together
Flash in use over
The Celestial Map-Northern Hemisphere (fragment)
Albrecht Dürer, woodcut, 1515.
PREVIEW
- Drawn by
the blade. - Printed frOm the cut.
TYPE TESTER
Languages
Context
Flash was conceived within the framework of Grafía Latina, a mid-20th-century cultural and typographic movement that emerged as an alternative to the rational, functionalist approach dominant in Central European modernism. Grafía Latina advocated for a more expressive, intuitive, and culturally rooted typographic language, closely connected to Mediterranean visual traditions.
Within this context, Flash reflects a shift toward typography as visual expression rather than pure function, embracing volume, texture, and emotional impact, and aligning with broader explorations of handcrafted, engraved, and illustrative forms.
Biography
Enric Crous-Vidal was born in Lleida, Spain, in 1908. From an early age, he developed broad artistic and intellectual interests, becoming involved in the Catalan avant garde scene during the 1930s. Around 1933, he became founder and artistic director of the magazine Art, a publication that promoted contemporary artistic and graphic experimentation.
The Spanish Civil War profoundly affected his life and career. After serving in the Republican Army, he went into exile in France, where during the German occupation he joined the French Resistance, producing forged documents and false identification papers.
Following the end of the Second World War, he moved to Paris and began working at Draeger Frères, a renowned French printing house celebrated for its technical excellence and high quality art publications..
Around 1950, Crous Vidal opened his own studio and began designing typefaces that would define much of his contribution to post war typography. In 1952, he presented a typographic exhibition at the Galerie d’Orsay in Paris, and in 1954 he became Artistic Director of the Fonderie Typographique Française, supported by influential typographer and critic Maximilien Vox1. During the 1950s and 1960s, he developed many of his best known typefaces while advocating for an alternative vision of graphic modernity rooted in expressive and calligraphic principles.
He died in France in 1987, leaving behind a body of work that continues to resonate as a distinctive voice in 20th century European typography.
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