Italica, developed by Monica Dengo and typeface designers Riccardo Olocco and Daniele Capo in 2014, is a digital typeface used for handwriting instruction in Italy. It is the result of Scrittura Corsiva, Dengo’s project to teach italic style handwriting to elementary school students at the Instituto Comprensivo Giovanni XXIII in Terranuova Bracciolini, Arezzo. The initiative, which began in 2008, led to the institute funding the development of Italica.
The typeface is now owned by Scrivere a Mano nell’Era Digitale, or Handwriting in the Digital Age (SMED), and used in their progressive handwriting teaching method and its resources.
Italica’s lowercase letters have an oval foundation and extenders shorter than the x-height. The default style is semi-joining. In it, “h”, “k” and “l” don’t have ascender loops, and the “r” doesn’t connect with the following letter. A set of alternates allows Italica to be fully joined, though it requires pen-lifts.
