In 1943, Guillermo de Mendoza started drawings for an incised alphabet, a year before his death. His son José used them as an inspiration for his Pascal typeface,for which the origins date back to 1953.

Contrary to the formal design of Swiss and German sans serif typefaces at that time, in France and Spain a movement called ‘Graphie Latine’ reintroduced the free and sensitive Latin tradition into type design, of which Pascal is a good sample.

Unique to Pascal is its true Italic, completely and truly following the construction of hand written calligraphic letter shapes as usually only seen in serif typefaces.

More reading about José Mendoza y Almeida and his work can be found in the similarly named book by Martin Majoor and Sébastien Morlighem, published by Bibliothèque Typographique, 2010, ISBN 978-2-35654-008-9