Lehrer, co-proprietor of EarSay, has taken a long road of typographer as author and authorial enabler. Moreover, his work is often made for the stage, so the static page is not simply an object but a performative experience.

Lehrer and his wife/EarSay partner, Judith Sloan, are doing a performance/reading from selected books and theater works of theirs at 2:30 p.m. on December 8 at Art New York (520 8th Ave.) in Manhattan. Sloan will be joined by Palestinian American actor and comedian Grace Canahuati. Books will also be available for sale, including This Page is an Occupied Territory. For more info and tickets, click here. And regardless of whether or not you attend, read the Q&A below.

Warren, you’ve been on a publishing fast-track these past years since COVID. What has triggered this continuous vigor in making text and ideas come alive through typography?
About six years ago it dawned on me that I didn’t have to only work on seven- or eight-year long projects that I write (or co-write) and design myself. I started collaborating with poets whose work I adore and who trust my sensibility, visualizing their texts into books and animations. I also stumbled into the realization that not every book had to be 300 or 400 pages (duh!), and I could work on shorter projects while continuing to work on longform ones. Yes, COVID probably had something to do with finding more hours in the day. I lost some dear friends and relatives to COVID, which was heartbreaking. But frankly, like many writers and artists, the pandemic was a hugely productive time to submerge into studioland. Also, in 2020 I liberated myself (I don’t use the “R” word) from being a full-time professor. I still teach one class (at the SVA Designer as Entrepreneur MFA program that you started, Steve), but that’s a whole different amount of time and psyche commitment.

So, yeah, I’ve come out with four publications within a little more than a year. Three of them are timely works. One related to coming out of a worldwide pandemic, and two of them speak to the war/slaughters going on in the Middle East. Publishing can be awfully slow, and I very much like this process of creating works born out of a particular cultural or personal moment in time and getting them out there soon after they’re finished.

Lastly, I’d say, these newest publications are more spare, in almost every respect, than many older works of mine. I’ve been a maximalist for a long time, creating dense works—an illuminated novel with 101 books within it, a four-book portrait series of over 1,000 pages, a documentary project chronicling 79 new immigrants and refugees from all over the world that juxtaposes multiple perspectives often on a single page. And typographically, I have a reputation for using dozens of typefaces in a project, as I’ve attempted to portray character and voice through typographic casting, composition and expression. Two of the four new publications are based on short stories of mine where the writing is more pruned, and two are poetry, which almost by definition is a matter of distilling language. I only use one weight of one typeface for the text in this new piece, which is very new for me. And with all the recent poetry collaborations, the typographic compositions are less about voice and more about diagramming ideas, finding hidden meanings and visual metaphors that emerge from the texts and the very human experiences they represent.

Your most recent publishing “event” (I use this word because it is print, poetry, performance, typography and more) is This Page is an Occupied Territory, written by Adeena Karasick and “visualized” by you. Before we discuss what it means to be a “visualizer,” tell me what about the intention of this tabloid newspaper/magazine-style publication?
Adeena sent me several new poems with the idea of us doing another book together. (We came out with Ouvert Oeuvre: Openings in 2023.) I was already juggling a bunch of projects, but I had a gut reaction to the poem This Page is an Occupied Territory, and felt an urgency to work on it. The title alone calls for a graphic treatment, so I started visualizing the text, which didn’t want to be contained within a standard book dimension. It grew in size, like the expanding war, and the daily bombardment of devastating news felt so outsized and all-encompassing, I had the idea of doing it as a tabloid-sized, newspaper-like publication. Adeena liked the parallel to the news, too, and because handling newspapers can be overwhelming—managing your body in this oversized thing, figuring out how to fold it and store it. I had seen online promotions for newspaperclub.com, based in the U.K., and started working with them. The proofs took a while, but once we were ready to roll, the run was printed in Glasgow, Scotland, on a Monday, and amazingly, we had all 700 copies in Brooklyn, New York, the next day, well in time for a live event at Pratt Institute the following week. I love that turnaround time and being able to sell it for 10 bucks a copy. And the printed piece functions well as a large-format, unbound score for the performance. At that first live event I page-turned a copy that faced the audience while Adeena performed the very sonic poem in her inimitable, turbo-charged way. 

To get even deeper than intent, since this is partly supported by the Jewish Heritage Museum, what is the message here regarding the occupied territories and the war? Are you setting forth an argument for or against occupation, or is there another arc that you and Karasick are making into art?
Before I ever saw the poem, Adeena presented a live performance of This Page is an Occupied Territory in February 2024 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, as part of a “Poetry Reading in Response to Antisemitism.” Adeena and I are both Jewish. I think it’s fair to say Adeena embraces her Jewishness more than I do, in her life and her art, and feels a stronger connection to Israel. For as long as I can remember, I have been expressing my connection to Israel by protesting its overkill military operations and its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. I’ve done this as a Jewish American who believes in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish homeland and a democratic state for all its inhabitants, alongside a Palestinian state.

I was horrified by the Oct 7th Hamas attacks/massacre of a music festival and several kibbutzim, which left 1,200 dead, hundreds taken hostage, many wounded, and all of Israel in a state of shock. One of my heroes, Vivian Silver, was killed that day at her home in Kibbutz Be’er. Ironically, Vivian was one of the founders of Women Wage Peace, perhaps the largest grassroots peace organization in Israel, founded by Palestinian and Israeli women dedicated to finding peaceful solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She was 74 years old.

Israel has a right to defend itself but, in my opinion, Netanyahu and his war cabinet’s response has been completely disproportionate, unrelenting and brutal. The war they’re waging is clearly not just a matter of going after Hamas. It’s a policy of destroying the entire infrastructure of Gaza and killing tens of thousands of civilians, mothers, children, doctors, teachers, journalists. It sure looks like ethnic cleansing to me, whatever term you want to use for mass slaughter and making it impossible for an entire group of people to live in their homeland.

In June of this year, I came out with Jericho’s Daughter, my anti-war, feminist retelling of the biblical tale of Rahab, which I discussed with you and Debbie Millman on the May 16th PRINT Book Club. Even though I was already in prepress for that book before the Oct. 7th attacks and the retaliatory war, the text of that book spoke to the moment and helped generate impassioned conversations. My version of Rahab features her in a dialogue with two Israelite soldiers, in which, among other things, she says, “…Another incomprehensible war will be waged in the name of Justice. And thousands of other children will be sacrificed in the name of Life. Who is going to stop this wheel of death? I’m asking you, who?”

Sadly, the wheel keeps turning.

So, This Page is an Occupied Territory is my second publication in six months that addresses this f’n war, albeit in rather different ways. I won’t speak for Adeena, but I can tell you I was drawn to her poem because it seems to come from a place that acknowledges the different worldviews that collide in that small piece of land. The text of the poem itself is geographically indeterminate and open to being applied to any number of situations. On the back page description of the project, Adeena analogizes the occupation and control of a region by force to the process of translation, which can sometimes be “a form of occupation, whereby one language layered onto the body of another, is an act of war.”

She continues, “For the word ‘war,’ as both an English noun and a verb meaning ‘conflict’ and a German adjective [wàhr] meaning what’s ‘true, real, genuine’ literally places ‘war’ at war with itself. To wit, ‘wà[h]r’ not only ‘occupies’ the homography between the ear and the eye; the babelism at play between speech and writing—but born in ‘differance,’ madness and effacement, the notion of ‘occupation’ points to how what’s ‘true’ is always in conflict.”

Hence, we end up with a deadly conflict born of misinterpretations/colliding realities, and of course power imbalances, and so much history one poem or answer to a question can’t answer. I appreciate Adeena’s scholarly, poly-lingual investigation of a subject, and her exploratory and exploded use of language. As much as This Page reveals empathy for the complex realities and narratives of both sides, in the end, this poem is not neutral. It comes down against occupation and the horrors of a grossly lopsided war.

Back to visualizing. Is visualizing different, the same, or similar to illustration? Or is there some other experiential intent?
I have great reverence for “design,” and design processes, but when it comes to the design of language, especially books, I think the word “design” equates more with book covers. When it comes to the insides of books, let’s say text-laden books, design usually denotes a kind of packaging of the text, so that it’s functional of course, easy to read, clean, transparent, even stylish (well-designed), current, professional-looking. Maybe in zines, the design of the innards can be funky, edgy, elegant, name an adjective or way to dress a text up or down. But for me, since I come to design as a writer, it’s always been about the fusion of meaning and form. So, when I work with a poet who asked me to interpret their work, I prefer to use the word visualize.

I equate it to a filmmaker or theater artist or composer of opera adapting a preexisting text into a film or work of theater or music theater. It’s a meeting of minds and souls and sensibilities and the transformation of one kind of thing (a text) into another medium. And for me, I’m not going to go near a project unless I love the writing. That’s the source, the wellspring of whatever I’m going do with the visualization.

When it comes to creating imagery, instead of illustrating a text, I prefer to think of what I do as “illuminate” (shed light on, or contradict, add to) a piece of writing with visuals. I used the term “illuminated novel” to describe A Life In Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley (2013), which contains 101 books within it. My author-protagonist’s books (book covers, catalog descriptions and excerpts that read like short stories) illuminate his life, and vice versa. I consider the images a part of the text. I also use the term “compose” to describe my writing and design process, as they often occur at the same time, and “composition” is the structural foundation of both writing and visual art, music too. With This Page is an Occupied Territory, I created a typographic landscape. The text and the image are one. There’s no separation as far as I’m concerned.

These terms may sound picky, but I can’t help but think about these descriptors before using readily available ones. In my first book, versations (1980), I wrote “realized by” before my name. I’m sure that was influenced by my early interest in contemporary music and “experimental” film and theater, where people used the word “realized” in a way that speaks to a kind of mysterious process that transcends the maker or makers, and speaks to interaction with materials, processes, intuition and god knows what else.

How do you go about visualizing? Is it intuitive, intellectual, aesthetic, symbolic—what is the process?
In the case of visualizing someone else’s poetry, I begin by reading and rereading the text. With Adeena Karasick’s poetry, that requires having encyclopedias and bilingual dictionaries at hand since she’s often sourcing many languages and plays with root words and etymologies, and is steeped in linguistics, philosophy, cultural criticism and history. As sonic and playful as her poems may seem at first, there’s a fair amount of study involved in reading her. Once I have a grasp of what the text is, for me, I do like to start the composition process with as blank a mind as possible. Put the first sentence or phrases on a page and see what starts to happen. The rhythms and pacing of the words are the most obvious starting point. But then, visual metaphors within the text start to suggest themselves. That involves making many iterations, and also mind mapping, which invariably leads to image research. In the case of This Page is an Occupied Territory, aerial photographs of occupied territories and war zones were helpful. Also, importantly, I try to feel what it might be like trapped inside an occupied territory, which in this case turns into an urban war zone.

This text, now publication, is also inherently meta or self-referential, as it speaks to occupied territories, not only throughout history (including open air ghettos in Poland and other Nazi-occupied countries), and of course in Gaza and the West Bank today, and other places around the globe, but also the occupied terrain of language itself, the very words on the page, which are occupied, by the writer, by me, by the reader, by typography, ink, paper, edges, intermingled vocabularies, the turning, stopping and starting of pages.

There is a build-up in the layouts and a rhythm that comes from the words and typographic composition. Can you describe what you’re trying to accomplish?
As much as I cherish that creative process of beginning with a blank slate and watching a work evolve through trial and error, sometimes you get a vision early on and you go with that. That’s what happened with This Page is an Occupied Territory. After reading the poem for the first time, I almost immediately had a vision for what it might look like, and that it would involve letterpress printing (a la Gutenberg) elements that could be used as blockades, barricades and border crossings. I made some sketches, working with the beginning of the poem, then I reached out to Roni Gross, a wonderful book artist and letterpress printer, and she ended up making prints for me of all sorts of wood-type characters, punctuation, dingbats, metal rules, borders and ornaments, Alpha Blox and wood “furniture” printed “type-high” on Vandercook letterpress proofing presses at the Center for Book Arts in New York City and the Center for Editions at SUNY Purchase.

I then made (digital) scans of the prints and visualized the poem in Adobe InDesign. The entire text—set in Knockout 71 Full Middleweight (a blocky, condensed weight of a large, muscular sans serif type family designed by Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones)—lives within and around these inky, textured, bordered environments. The poem begins somewhat open-aired, with some room to move and wander around in, but as the poem progresses, the text and occupied spaces within this tabloid-size, 28-page publication become more and more boxed in, askew, and rubbled to pieces.

I think I know the answer to this, but I’d like to hear it from you: Does the publication serve as a “hymnal” or libretto for the poem by Karasick, or should/can it be read without the performative element?
Yes, yes, and yes. You know my work began as performance scores and graphically notated plays. Over time, as I became more serious as a writer and developed more awareness of the different attributes of different mediums, I stopped putting stage directions and music notation in my books. But performance has continued to be an important part of my oeuvre. It’s one of the things that draws me to Adeena’s work. She’s a dynamic, force-of-nature performer, and it’s a kick watching her perform off of my rendering of her words, yes, as a kind of shaped-note hymnal for her incantations. But also, the publication serves as a score for the reader, either to be read silently to themselves, or out loud, or, as I mentioned before, reading along as they’re watching Adeena perform it live, with me or on her own.

We printed a QR code in the back of the Ouvert Oeuvre: Openings book, so after reading the book to themselves, the reader can read along to a recording of Adeena accompanied by Grammy Award–winning musician Frank London. I’ve also made books that came with audio CDs or were augmented by animations, and I recently came out with my first fully electronic book (Riveted in the Word), which has kinetic typography and an audio soundtrack. But the scale, immediacy and performative energy of This Page is an Occupied Territory I don’t think warranted any augmentation.

Finally, for anyone who knows Werkman’s The Next Call, there seems to be an homage here. Is this a conscious “remembrance”?
Yes, the ghost of Werkman (1882–1945) was hovering around this project from that initial vision I had of printing wood “furniture” normally used (but not seen) to lock up type and other printed elements to the bed of a press. Looking at reprints of The Next Call was definitely part of my visual research, appreciating the raw energy and improvisatory joie de vivre in his typographic, often hand-brayered compositions, many of which were composed during very trying times. I actually replicated a fragment of a 1934 “Komposition” of his made of interlocking parallel lines and rectangles that I use as a motif that appears here and there throughout This Page is an Occupied Territory. It’s really the only time I can remember ever using a visual quote like that from someone else’s work. Perhaps you picked up on it. You know, in those last years of his life, not only was he an outspoken partisan, but he also worked on “illustrating” a series of Hassidic stories from Baal Shem Tov, a bold act of resistance itself. Talk about chutzpah!

The post The Daily Heller: A New Visualized Poem Covers ‘Occupied Territory’ appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

This post is in support of a new book by typographer and long-serving Type Archive volunteer Richard Ardagh, who has assumed responsibility for celebrating these extraordinary materials. The book is scheduled to be published in winter 2025 by Volume.

I recently reached out to Ardagh to learn more about it—and the fate of the archive. I got exactly what I wanted.

How did you become involved with the Type Archive?
After working on A23D, my project to create the first 3D-printed letterpress font, I was fascinated to understand the processes of traditional typefounding. I started volunteering at the Type Archive as an apprentice learning how to make Monotype matrices to fulfill orders. I ended up specializing in punch-cutting, having delved through most parts of the extensive collections.

What is the process of collecting and cataloging the overwhelming weighty objects of the archive?
At first I began bringing my camera to document artifacts that I found interesting and to help founder Susan Shaw with promotion. After she died in 2020 I tried to take more photos, as the future of the archive began to be questioned. The book is made up of these images, as well as some that I commissioned especially and others inherited from before I was involved. It’s arranged in sections by material: iron, steel, copper, brass, bronze, wood, paper. The history of typefounding spans 500 years and is quite complex, so this ordering is an attempt to make the content accessible at first glance and also to highlight how many different materials a letterform passed through before appearing on the printed page

Why did it close in 2023, and where have the holdings gone?
The Type Archive had to relinquish its premises in 2023. The Science Museum has moved the Monotype Collection to the National Collections Centre near Swindon, and the Stephenson Blake Collection is also being housed there, on behalf of the V&A. The DeLittle Collection is returning to York, the company’s city of origin. Its records are currently undergoing conservation and its objects are on display and in storage with York Centre for Print, which is associated with University of York.

How much material can you cram into the book? And more important, is your intent simply to preserve a memory—or something more ambitious?
The book contains photography and descriptions of around 150 artifacts. The intention is to share the highlights that I was able to document and increase understanding of their importance.

The post The Daily Heller: Saving Printing History’s Precious Metals (and Wood) appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Hand-bound books, honest stories and photography as evidence – design and book-making studio Zone6 is putting narrative-driven documentary photography at the front of its print runs.

“Breaks are for wannabe writers. Time and time again, I hear the laments of the undisciplined crying out, ‘Oh, I need to clear my head.’ Ridiculous. You need to resist the siren song of temptation emanating from your bladder or the dog scratching at the backdoor or the pain radiating from your chronic carpal tunnel and get down to work.”

How to write 100,000 words per day, every day.

David Pearson has ‘grammed a fantastic selection of Spektrum books designed by Lothar Reher between 1968 and 1993 for the German publisher Volk und Welt. Never seen these before and now I want all of them.

“Rampant consumerism has consumed us” – how queuing for stuff became just as important as buying it.

Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker announces The Orchid synthesizer, a new songwriting tool, ideas machine and dust-gathering object of bleepy bloopy technolust.

Animauteur¹ Don Hertzfeldt on using Photoshop:

“You don’t know what you’re not allowed to do. I still don’t know, but I’ve felt better about myself because I have spoken to people who are in technical positions in cinema who are like, “Yeah, I don’t know what half this stuff does either.” I think it’s a sign of good software where you don’t need to. A sign of good software to me is it’s intuitive, and you can put your things in, and hopefully behave like an artist and make a mess and not break things. The downside is when you realize there’s something you could have done easier a long time ago.”

… from this excellent Slate interview

All the World’s a Stage, the new David Campany-curated retrospective of William Klein’s photography at Lisbon’s MAAT, looks wonderful.

If, like me, you’ve been given very clear instructions to not ask Santa for yet more books to arrange in neat piles around the house, Creative Boom’s annual gift guide is always a good place to look for alternative stocking fillers.

The Boom’s bluesky starter pack is also worth a click. Or you could just follow me.

That is all.

1. Yeah maybe don’t hold your breath waiting for that one to catch on, Daniel. ↩︎

This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.

Header image courtesy of the author.

The post Meanwhile No. 221 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Berger, an independent interactive designer specializing in immersive web experiences for clients in the arts and culture space, has always enjoyed exploring different disciplines to bring into his creative practice. When he discovered typography, he began conceptualizing typefaces as they might come to life across media.

Penelope is the result of two years of work “of trying to find the perfect fit,” and Berger says there’s more work to do and is already planning an update for 2025. Even so, the typeface comes with 11 stylistic sets, 25 ligatures, and 272 glyphs, giving it versatility across languages and different use cases.

Given all the controversy around the Paris Summer Olympics logo, I think Penelope would have been a delightful typeface alternative for the wordmark.

Learn more about Timothée Berger on his Instagram and give Penelope a try.

The post Penelope Channels Two Iconic 20th-Century Art Movements with Modern Flair appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

While it is vital to acknowledge and celebrate Indigenous cultures no matter the time of year, heading into this beloved yet problematic holiday with a challenge to broaden our awareness is fundamental.

What does this have to do with typography?

I ran across an incredible design and research program from the Netherlands-based foundry Typotheque, helping Indigenous communities reclaim and digitally preserve their language scripts. I spoke with Typotheque collaborator Kevin King. The Canadian designer, calligrapher, and educator is focused on support and research for minority languages through reform to the Unicode text standard, an effort he started while designing the typeface Mazina for his master’s design thesis.

Our conversation is below (lightly edited for clarity and length).

Covering Typotheque’s Zed typeface recently, I was astounded to learn that more than half of the 7,100 (at least) known world languages are endangered. I’d imagine that many of those at risk are centuries—perhaps, millennia—old Indigenous languages. Why is it important to preserve them, particularly in digital contexts such as Unicode?

Yes, indeed, Indigenous languages across the world – not only in North America – are at-risk of being lost within our lifetime, and the importance of Unicode towards the larger narrative of Indigenous language reclamation and revitalization is that without a stable basis for reliable text encoding on all computer devices and software platforms, it is not possible to ensure that remaining fluent speakers, and perhaps more importantly, young language learners, can have a consistent level of access to their language that leads to more engagement and ensures the success of learners to acquire the language and use it ubiquitously in daily life. 

Unicode itself is not enough by itself; the Unicode Standard provides the standardized repertoire of characters that are available for encoding and character data to instruct the behaviour and relationships of the characters, but language tools and our software must implement the Unicode Standard correctly and comprehensively in order to make language access a true reality. This means that major operating systems and applications must also take care to support new character additions to the Unicode Standard and the character data. Keyboards must be available to input those Unicode characters, and fonts must be available that shape how the Unicode “text” should be represented typographically. This is in many cases trivial for “majority” languages across the world; however, for Indigenous languages, it is an all-to-common reality that there may be missing characters from the Unicode Standard, or, that software and language tools (keyboards and fonts) do not accurately support the way text must appear and behave in these languages.

How do you work with Indigenous groups; what does the collaboration look like?

The most essential component of working with Indigenous language communities is building a relationship together that is based on mutual respect and collaboration. We do this by first creating a protocol agreement that outlines our shared goals, values, and desired outcomes for the work, and the key that underpins all of the work is the collaborative nature of everything we do. When working together on a particular initiative, our role is to first listen to the needs of the community about the barriers they may face and to provide our technical knowledge in the form of possible actions to solve the problem. Then, only with permission, can we move ahead to execute a solution that the community has determined is acceptable for them.

Tell us more about your project with the Cherokee and Osage in Oklahoma. 

Our projects with the Cherokee and Osage scripts are slightly different than our work directly with language communities such as the Haíɫzaqv community or the Nattilik community. In these projects, we are working with talented local type designers in each Nation to work together on developing new fonts for each script. Our Cherokee project is led by Chris Skillern, a skilled type designer from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a member of the Cherokee Nation, who is designing new Cherokee fonts for Typotheque and also conducting research towards typographic preferences for Cherokee syllabary forms. Similarly, our Osage project is led by the talented typographer and designer Dr. Jessica Harjo of the Osage Nation. In this project, Jessica and I work together as a team to develop the Osage typefaces, and our goal is to understand ideal typographic lettershapes for Osage that allow for the best graphic representation of the script for reading.

What makes Indigenous scripts so unique, and what are the challenges in designing digital fonts for them? For example, many (though not all) Indigenous scripts are syllabic.

In the North American context, there are, of course, the wonderful and unique scripts that were developed specifically for Indigenous languages, first the Cherokee by Sequoyah, and then the Syllabics used by First Nations and Inuit communities in Canada, and then more recently, the Osage script. These are graphically distinct writing systems, and for many other Indigenous language communities, variations of the Latin script, with many integrated characters from the Greek script or phonetic notation systems, may be based on that script of European origin; however, they are inherently unique from European language orthographies using the same script.

Specimens from the November (top) and Lava (bottom) typeface Syllabaries

Indeed, these scripts and writing systems all come with their unique design challenges. One major challenge for all is the lack of support for any of these scripts in common font development software. This means that – unlike designing type for other well-supported scripts – it is not possible to open a font editor, populate a character set, and then start drawing glyphs. The designer has to first define a character set and possibly even resolve Unicode-level issues before beginning the design process.

Once one has a character set defined and has worked out the encoding side aspects, there is then also a knowledge issue, or perhaps better put, the lack of knowledge for how to design accurate typefaces that work as users expect and require their typography appear, and generally for how their orthography must work. For example, within the context of the Syllabics, a type designer needs to be aware of inherent orthographic and typographic conventions that are particular to this writing system that affect the logic of how a typeface in this script must work. 

A case in this script is how much wider the word space character needs to be than the Latin script for the legible reading of Syllabics. However, both scripts use the same Unicode character for the word space (U+0020 SPACE) but have conflicting demands. Upon learning this, the type designer may recognize the problem and has several options for how to implement support for this, but they would be missing a key ingredient still in their knowledge of the situation: what practices do language users have when keying in that word space that would affect the design implementation? For example, to avoid a conflict between word space widths, we could create contextual substitutions via OpenType Layout features, which switches the desired glyph between both scripts. However, through our work speaking with many different Syllabics users across many different communities, we know that most users have developed a practice of entering a double spacebar when typing in Syllabics which solves the problem, and we do not have to allocate the time and energy to devise a solution for this but to be aware of the fact that Syllabics require this wider space.

We have tried to contribute to this knowledge by creating this GitHub repository, and we are currently working on a research project (Typotheque Indigenous North American Type) in partnership with First Nations communities that seeks to help build similar knowledge for many other languages and their orthographies that can then allow other type foundries to access this information and implement accurate support for these languages.

Left: A proof showing a comparison of the Lava Syllabics upright and cursive forms, in the Heavy master; Top right: An early sketch made by the author during the initial research phase of the project, exploring potential modulation structures that could be applied to the Lava Syllabics design; Bottom right: An example of the concept of rotation, which sits at the core functionality of Syllabics typography, for any language that uses the writing system.

As a foundry, Typotheque is committed to supporting digitally underresourced languages. How is this labor of love funded, and what are ways that the design industry (companies or individuals) can help and further the effort?

We are certainly passionate about this space of work, and it is an important part of what we do at Typotheque, not only for languages in North America but also for Indigenous and under-represented languages across the world.

All of the work that we do is completely funded internally by Typotheque by using revenue generated from retail font sales and custom project work for clients. In this sense, customers who purchase licenses for our fonts or hire us to do custom typeface work effectively help support this work and allow us to continue the effort. We have also created the Typotheque Club, which is a free club that features talks, rewards, and crowdfunding initiatives, and provides us with another avenue for generating funding for this space of work.

What is something surprising you’ve learned about Indigenous written languages generally (or a specific script) in this research?

Something that is perhaps surprising that I have learned is that – despite such rich orthographic and typographic diversity in the writing systems used by Indigenous languages in North America – the oral language is still always the most important aspect of the language.

I understand you’ve been interested in typeface support for Indigenous languages since your master’s studies. Where is your research taking you now; what’s a dream project you’d love to sink your teeth into?

I’m very grateful to work in this space of Indigenous language support and ultimately, language revitalization and reclamation, where the work has a direct, very tangible, and meaningful impact on people’s daily lives. It’s also part of contributing to society at large and using my design skills to positively support the important work that Indigenous language keepers and communities are undertaking. With that, the current project we are working on at Typotheque and have just begun – Typotheque Indigenous North American Type – would be something that embodies where I wish to focus my efforts, a project to work in partnership to overcome technical issues and understand typographic preferences and requirements with Indigenous communities, alongside looking towards projects designing and developing new and fresh typefaces that support Indigenous languages and their writing systems as standard and ubiquitous parts of these products.

More resources & reading:

November is a typeface designed for signage and information systems, but its orthogonal style is rhythmic in smaller contexts. Zed and award-winning Lava are two additional typefaces supporting Latin and Syllabic Indigenous scripts. Some of the process images included in our feature above are from King’s work on developing a secondary slanted style for Lava.

q̓apkiⱡ Magazine is a recently published, award-winning publication for the Ktunaza community in British Columbia, featuring both November and Lava.

King also wrote comprehensive guidelines for Syllabic typographic development.

The post Typotheque’s Kevin King on Preserving Indigenous Scripts Through Typographic Support appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“The new typography is fundamental. It rejects a predetermined formal structure, but builds up forms according to the function; it constructs a page with white and black in a way that expresses tensions in the text: explicit or plastic form. In advertising, with its intrusive active text, it employs all form-values that embody the compressive and tensile stresses of communication. Not only with black and white, but also with color … the new typography incor­porates active red as a functional element: as a signal, an eye-catcher.”

Among his many memorable artifacts—including “The Book of PTT” for Dutch postal, telegraph and telephone service, and cover designs for the series Monografieën over filmkunst—were catalogs for Nederlandse Kabelfabriek Delft (NKF), which turned conventionally formatted graphic design for industry on its ear. Inspired by Constructivism and De Stijl, and using stark product photography, photomontage, skewed typography, geometrical shape and repeated word patterns integrated into layers of overlapping primary colors, Zwart produced designs that underscored the argument that the new typography was not some faddish, impractical avant garde experiment but a disciplined, functional document that was accessible for technical (otherwise bland) business requirements.

Zwart’s continued work from the 1920s and early ’30s for NKF doubtless influenced the similarly innovative catalog designs that Ladislav Sutnar produced for Sweets Catalog Service in the 1950s, and Paul Rand‘s 1942 Autocar Corporation “Mechanized Mules of Victory.”

As part of its robust publishing program, Letterform Archive has rereleased Zwart’s classic—and rare among antiquarians—1927–1928 NFK catalog (Piet Zwart’s Avant-Garde Catalog For Standard Cables). Faithfully printed, it appears as though designed today, yet retains the original luster of those early years of The New Typography. The two-volume boxed set includes the facsimile edition and a supplement featuring three historic and historical essays by the late Philip B. Meggs, Paul Stinton, and Zwart’s own “From Old to New Typography,” as well as translations from the Dutch catalog texts.

This edition and guide is essential to studying the continuum of Euro-modern typography. But as important is that rather than mere reproduction, the facsimile provides the user with a hands-on, tactile virtual original. For me, it has another benefit …

I once owned a tattered but nonetheless rare copy of the catalog. In moving from one place to another it somehow disappeared. Maybe it is hiding in a box somewhere in storage. I could not afford the high prices of what was offered on the antiquarian book marketplace, but for now and forever, this new facsimile edition is as close to the old as possible … and I don’t have to worry about its whereabouts.

The post The Daily Heller: Piet Zwart’s Best Client appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Airport, a new typeface designed by Lukas Scheider, founder of Revolver Type Foundry, came out of one such rabbit hole. Schneider saw a vintage counting game for kids from 1979 and the type caught his eye. He was unable to find the typeface, so he engaged a Berlin graphic designer and type expert, Florian Hardwig, who finally tracked down the mystery typeface: Airport Spotlight, a spin-off of Matthew Carter’s Airport, a typeface designed in 1960 for London Airport (now Heathrow).

Down the hole Schneider went, through the fascinating histories of London Airport and airport wayfinding and through the pages of books that reference Carter’s typeface (including the extremely hard-to-obtain 1970 book, A Sign System Manual, by Theo Crosby, Colin Forbes, and Alan Fletcher), and eventually leading to a conversation with Carter himself.

A Sign Systems Manual, Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes, 1970

(Left) Two images from Airport Wayfinding, Nehl/Schlaich, 2021;
(Right) Airport variants from a catalog of Layoutsetzerei Stulle, Stuttgart, 1985

Airport and Airport X are the results of his research, releasing a modern version of Carter’s iconic, mid-century typeface 64 years after it debuted. Schneider’s Airport is not simply a direct digitization—he played with the aperture proportions, modulation, and x-height, thus enabling the family to be used at smaller sizes than the original version. Stylistic alternatives, glyphs, and special characters add additional language support and iconography harkening back to the original typeface’s wayfinding purpose.

Read more about the type family and Schneider’s research on the Airport microsite.

I asked Schneider a few questions about the project; his answers are below.

What was your favorite aspect of the design process or the overall project? 
One favorite aspect of the overall project was creating the microsite and background story. After spending time designing the letter shapes, it was refreshing to work on the visualizations. Sometimes it takes a while to finalize the visual identity, but I believe the effort and iterations are worth it to achieve a cohesive design. Although time-consuming, I enjoy thinking about how to present the project to the public, especially when it has a historical background like this one. Another exciting part was the thrill of finding rare materials, such as the book A Sign System Manual, and having the opportunity to discuss the project with Matthew Carter.

What was the most challenging aspect of the project? 
On one hand, some decisions about specific shapes were quite challenging due to the scarcity of printed examples of the original typeface. 

For example, I had to determine which shape of the lowercase ‘r’ was used in the original release. On the other hand, this gave me some freedom to incorporate my personal tastes and preferences. Fortunately, OpenType features allow for alternate glyphs to be included, so I added a few. However, alternate glyphs are often used less than the default shapes, so this decision had to be carefully considered.

Why is it important to preserve and re-work iconic typefaces? 
As a type designer, I’m always seeking inspiration. Revitalizing old fonts is a long-standing tradition in type design, and for me, it’s intrinsic to the craft itself. Digitizing an analog typeface makes it more accessible and easier to use by a wider audience, which I believe is a positive development. In a way, you’re also preserving history.

What’s next for you and Revolver Type?
I have several projects in the pipeline. Sometimes progress is slow, and it’s difficult to predict which project will be published next, especially when working on multiple projects simultaneously. I’m focusing more on variable font technology, which can make projects more time-consuming. So there won’t be a new release soon.

Schneider founded Revolver in 2017; the Frankfurt-based foundry’s name is a clever nod to the circular and always-evolving nature of print, editorial, and type design.

At Revolver Type, we like to mix historical motifs and contemporary vision, combine them with state-of-the-art technology, and fuse them into forceful fonts. Made with love – no guns involved.

In recent years, Revolver has developed tools to streamline the digital type design and production process. LS Cadencer channels the spacing principles of 16th-century typesetting to assist type designers in their workflow, enabling spacing to be effortlessly considered at the early stages of a design.

Learn more about Revolver Type Foundry.

The post Revolver Type Reimagines Matthew Carter’s Iconic Airport Typeface appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Design creativity blooms in spaces where curiosity meets intention, where ideas are nurtured into forms that resonate and inspire. It’s a process marked by exploration, experimentation, and the willingness to challenge conventions to uncover new perspectives. In this fertile ground, creativity is more than a spark—it’s a cultivated journey, drawing from diverse influences and blending intuition with technique.

Celebrating our 45th year, the 2025 PRINT Awards honors design in every shape and form. And, as our industry continues to evolve and our practitioners continue to explore new mediums and methods to advance their creativity, the PRINT Awards have found new ways to recognize outstanding work.

2024 PRINT Awards First Place Winner in Self-Promotions. The Office of Ordinary Things and D&K Printing. D&K Printing also printed the beautiful 2024 PRINT Awards certificates.

Categories for 2025

The 2025 PRINT Awards offer 28 categories for entries, ranging from Illustration to Motion Design & Video. In recent years, we added In-House, Design for Social Impact, and Packaging and expanded our branding categories. We also expanded the awards to offer students a chance to enter work in each category instead of only one student category. And, this year, our jury will also consider entries in Social Media + Content Design, Title Sequence Design, and Graphic Novels.

Learn more about the 2025 PRINT Awards categories.

2024 PRINT Awards Third Place Winner in Packaging, CF Napa Brand Design; Second Place Winner in Logo Design, Onfire. Design.

Citizen Design Award

Each year, the PRINT Awards highlight a free-to-enter Citizen Design Award to celebrate design work focused on one annually chosen social issue. With societies facing global challenges like climate change, economic instability, and technological shifts, our Citizen Design Award this year will honor work that speaks to social justice.

Social Justice ensures that all people are entitled to human rights and societal respect regardless of race, gender, religion, health, and economic status. Discrimination in the form of economic and educational inequities, combined with enduring legacies of oppression continue to impact many communities, creating toxic cycles of privilege and disadvantage.

Design can profoundly influence social justice through graphic tools that amplify awareness and drive change. Design can make complex issues more accessible, spark debate, inform audiences, and motivate positive engagement. This year’s PRINT Citizen Design category recognizes and celebrates the most impactful work that fosters empathy and action. From social awareness campaigns to apps, community-centered design projects, infographics, posters, social media graphics, and interactive experiences, Citizen Design will honor work that strives to make our world more compassionate and just.

2024 PRINT Awards First Place Winner in Design for Social Impact, Clinton Carlson and Team.

Our 2025 Jury

With a global jury representing a wide range of disciplines, each entry will continue to be judged on four key criteria: Craft, Longevity, Innovation, and Originality. Top winners will be featured on PRINTmag.com and receive trophies, certificates, and social media promotion. We’ll be adding jury members in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we welcome a few here!

A few of the 2025 Jury Members: Marisa Sanchez-Dunning, Bennett Peji, Jennifer Rittner, Eleazar Ruiz, Lara McCormick, Mike Perry, and Miller McCormick. More jurors are to be announced soon!

The 2025 PRINT Awards Presenting Sponsor

The team at PepsiCo Design + Innovation believes that good design is a meaningful experience. A functional product. A rich story. A beautiful object. Design can be fun, convenient, precious, or fearless, but good design is always an act of respect, empathy, and love.

That’s why PepsiCo Design + Innovation has joined PRINT this year as our Presenting Sponsor—to recognize, honor and, above all, to celebrate the joy of design in all its forms. That’s why PepsiCo Design and Innovation has joined PRINT this year as our Presenting Sponsor—to recognize, honor, and, above all, celebrate the joy of design in all its forms!

Dates and Deadlines

As in years past, we’ve broken the deadline schedule for the awards into four simple tiers—Early Bird, Regular, Late, and Final Call. The earlier you enter, the more you save because it helps us plan judging schedules and other tasks in advance. Enter now for the best price! (And it’s worth noting that to enable students to enter, the pricing is consistent across the board no matter when they submit their work.)

Join us as we recognize the talent that colors our world and celebrate the beauty of fresh ideas, bold solutions, and impactful storytelling. From emerging talents to seasoned visionaries, each submission is a testament to the boundless growth of design.

Submit your work today, and let’s cultivate the next generation of creative vision!

The post Announcing The 2025 PRINT Awards Call For Entries appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

With bold flavors, nostalgic branding, and a playful mascot named Sando Sam, Ayoh! isn’t just a condiment—it’s a love letter to America’s sandwich culture. Designed to bring the spirit of the classic deli counter into your kitchen, Ayoh! seeks to redefine what it means to make a great sandwich at home. Collaborating with CENTER Design to build a brand as flavorful as its sauces, Ayoh! promises to revolutionize home-cooked sandwiches by combining chef-level flavor with playful Americana-inspired branding. I was lucky enough to speak with Alex Center about Ayoh!’s creation and talk brand strategy and direction; find gems from our conversation below.

Baz’s journey from recipe developer to condiment creator was fueled by a love for sandwiches and a frustration with boring, dry options at home. “Ayoh! is all about taking the sandwich shop and everything that means—from American culinary heritage to its vibrant energy—and bringing it to today’s countertop,” explains Alex Center, founder of CENTER Design​.

Ayoh! is about taking the sandwich shop and everything that means—from Americana heritage to its vibrant energy—and bringing it to today’s countertop.

Alex Center

The brand’s creative direction leans heavily on nostalgia, with a nod to mid-century sandwich shop culture. The Ayoh! logo draws from vintage deli signage, combining art deco script styles with a modern gloopy twist. The custom-designed typeface even includes a subtle drip in the “o,” hinting at its saucy DNA. “We wanted the brand to feel like it’s always been here—a tribute to the enduring charm of the great American sandwich,” Center shares. Vibrant hues inspired by Formica diner surfaces and zany illustrations complete the aesthetic​.

What inspired the nostalgic-meets-modern design for Ayoh!’s branding?
Alex Center: We wanted the brand to feel historic without feeling vintage, and modern without being trendy. It’s about bringing the American sandwich shop’s heritage to the countertop—infusing nostalgia from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s sandwich shop culture while ensuring it feels fresh and relevant today. Molly’s vibrant energy and love for sandwiches were central to this design, and her unique color palette, inspired by elementary school hues, added an approachable and educational touch.

At the heart of Ayoh!’s branding is its mascot, Sando Sam—a cheeky sandwich character with a penchant for accessories that change with each flavor. “Sando Sam embodies the fun and levity brands used to have,” says Center. “It’s a storyteller and a nod to classic mascots like Mr. Peanut and the Morton Salt Girl, adding personality to every bottle.”​

What was the rationale behind incorporating Sando Sam as a mascot?
AC: Molly’s ethos of making cooking approachable and enjoyable called for a character that could inject personality into the packaging. A little sandwich character with boots and a cap felt like the perfect way to echo the Americana vibe while adding a playful twist. It’s not just about sandwiches; it’s about celebrating the joy and creativity of making them.

Launching with four bold flavors—Original Mayo, Dill Pickle Mayo, Tangy Dijonayo, and Hot Giardinayo—Ayoh! aims to end boring sandwiches once and for all. Packaged in squeezable bottles reminiscent of deli counters, the sauces invite culinary creativity, encouraging users to “Pass it! Squeeze it! Spread it! Dip it!”​

How does Ayoh! stand out in the crowded CPG market?
AC: Ayoh! doesn’t aim to be another trendy startup—it’s designed to feel timeless, as though it’s been part of the culture for generations. The design avoids overt nostalgia or modern clichés, instead blending both into something era-less. Molly’s storytelling and passion for sandwiches shine through, turning Ayoh! into more than a condiment—it’s a tool to elevate home cooking with personality, fun, and purpose. It’s a true reflection of her brand DNA.

With a mission to make home cooking more accessible and exciting, Ayoh! perfectly encapsulates Baz’s ethos: “Cooking has to be fun and easy, or no one will do it.” Whether you’re elevating a Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich or experimenting with bold flavor pairings, Ayoh! is here to bring the joy of the sandwich shop to your kitchen.

A sandwich isn’t just food; it’s democratic, timeless, and for everyone. Ayoh! celebrates that spirit by ending boring sandwiches with fun, flavor, and a bit of personality.

Alex Center

To get your hands on this delicious sando sauce, visit Ayoh! and follow them on Instagram at @eatayoh.

The post CENTER Design Brings Sando Shop Nostalgia to Molly Baz’s Saucy New Brand appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Age: 24
From: Jakarta, Indonesia
Living in: Los Angeles, CA
Currently working at Thinking Room
Studied at: ArtCenter College of Design

The PRINT community has spoken! Among a stellar class of New Visual Artists this year, we asked our audience to vote on the designer they felt should be named the 2024 Community Choice Winner, a significant recognition that highlights the artist’s ability to connect with an audience on a personal level.

This year, that well-deserved honor goes to Danu Ardhata!

Ardhata Sans, type-design student initiative project.

Atheneum, type-design student initiative project.

The Art of Biomimicry, A narrative-driven, typographic poster series.

Ardhata’s work is driven by a balance between idealism and the practicalities of contemporary branding, to create transformative brands that influence consumer behavior and set new standards.

His focus is on exploring the essence of humanity in brand identity. Ardhata feels that in the same way, humans adapt and evolve, brands must remain dynamic, responding to their environment. This adaptability is central to his philosophy, alongside a commitment to continuous learning and openness to new perspectives.

Looking ahead, Ardhata envisions a future of boundless possibilities, emphasizing the importance of crafting narratives that resonate deeply with the human spirit and forging meaningful connections. His ultimate goal is to shape brands that leave a lasting, authentic impact.

We can’t wait to see where his thoughtfulness, openness, and outstanding talent take him in his career. And we know the design community will be better for his efforts.

Congratulations, Danu!

We’ll see you next year for a new crop of PRINT New Visual Artists. In the meantime, consider submitting your work for The 2025 PRINT Awards. Look for announcements this week!

The post The PRINT New Visual Artist Community Choice Winner is… appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

For more, read PRINT’s interview with Hische about her latest children’s book, out Oct 2024, My First Book of Fancy Letters.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

The post DesignThinkers Podcast: Jessica Hische appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The new type palette pays respects to its successors (Dennis Ortiz-Lopez’s condensed slab serifs with high contrast display of the 90s, and Jim Parkinson’s enduring and curvaceous 1981-2018 wordmark) but takes the overall aesthetic in a new direction. The team’s ethos for the redesign: “Make it look like Rolling Stone, without directly sampling bygone issues,” said Schwartz.

It would have been easy to slip into nostalgia for this project, but we didn’t want to go that route. Nostalgia engages only superficially with history, trafficking in tropes of an idealized past.

Christian Schwartz, Commercial Type partner and co-founder

For headlines, Tim Ripper designed Rolling Stone Slab, softening the potential for solid walls of screaming text with subtly rounded serifs. This is an evolution of his work on the condensed weights of Commercial Type’s Successor typeface, a reinterpretation of the 19th-century English slab serif (aka Egyptian or Antique). The italic version gets its personality from curvy tails and cursive-like detailing, harkening back a century or so.

French calligrapher Julien Priez, a relatively new addition to the Commercial Type team, designed the body text and subheadlines, riffing off the team’s Feature Flat and Deck typefaces. Priez added swashes to both the italic and Roman versions; the result lends a whimsical note to artist names, in particular.

I have redesigned Rolling Stone at least four times now and this is my absolute favorite.

Joe Hutchison, Rolling Stone creative director

For more, read Commercial Type’s case study.

Images courtesy of Commercial Type.

The post Commercial Type Samples Custom and Off-the-Shelf for the Best ‘Rolling Stone’ Redesign Yet appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Remember this name – Letrástica!

Held biennially (2024 was its fifth edition), Letrástica Festival is led by Gen Ramirez, an experienced typeface designer, sign painter, calligrapher, and educator from Guadalajara. Ramirez studied at TypeMedia at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and completed the Type@Cooper Extended program in San Francisco and the Condensed program in New York.

At Letrástica, I was surprised by the small but growing ‘letters’ community, how passionate, dedicated, and professional they are, and, most importantly, how connected and supportive this collective is. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend design and branding events all over the globe, where you might see creative superstars, but they often exist in their own separate worlds. At Letrástica, you can mingle around the creatives and experience how they all gladly cheer for each other when presenting their work.

Event photos courtesy of Mau Nogueron

The festival featured many engaging workshops where students and professionals gathered to learn from their peers. Also, typography work by students and professionals from around the world was displayed on the conference walls.

Event photos courtesy of Mau Nogueron

The highly skilled and professional Latin creative force from Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico was complemented by foreign designers like Kalapi Gajjar (India), Cyrus Highsmith (USA), and the one and only Ellen Lupton (USA), among others.

Collaboration was the main topic around Letrástica, at least from my perspective, as most speakers credited a big part of their success to active participation with other creatives. I found their candor honest, emotionally resonant, and refreshing. This transparency showing the struggles and successes that creatives go through was motivating, making it even more real and relatable.

It was hard for me to narrow down the creatives to highlight in this article, as all are incredibly talented and inspirational.

Marte is an Argentinean designer now residing in NYC who initially studied to be a geologist. She made us laugh about that choice, but we all quickly realized how lucky she was to have made that decision. Her work often is influenced by the shapes and colors found on earth, from the inside or outside of a stone or straight under the microscope. She said this powerful phrase: “What forms you never leaves you.”

© Marte

Daniel Barba, a local designer, leads MonotypoStudio, a company specializing in packaging design, branding, illustration, and editorial design. What caught my attention wasn’t the superb work that Barba and his studio are producing, it was mostly his quirky mind and his ability to extract, deconstruct, and apply concepts from literature, poetry, and philosophy, among other research-rich areas. If you want to have a debate with Barba, come prepared!

© Daniel Barba

Alicia Márquez is a graphic designer and typography professor from Argentina. Her clear and stunning approach to transforming materials was mind-blowing. Márquez’s stone carving craft is soothing and impressive and most definitely could be seen as art. She explained that to her the process is what matters most, probably more than the end result.

© Alicia Márquez

Last but not least, legendary designer Ellen Lupton, or as many know her, Type Mom, for her educational yet fun Instagram posts about typography. I was lucky to spend more time with her and was surprised at how eager she is to keep exploring after all her success. She’s quite passionate about baking and explained how similar it is to design. From the selection of the materials, ways of mixing them, timing, quantities, and finishes, you can get an amazing result or burn the whole thing. Lupton imparted a sensorial design workshop and a lecture about how to fall in love with typography, and she killed it!

It has been a while since this old dog has been this lifted and inspired by the spirit and work of the upcoming young creatives and the successful and experienced designers.

A spark has been lit inside me.

Letrástica is not just a festival, engaging a growing community of hundreds of type and design enthusiasts spanning 39 countries. Its focus is on sharing the typographic work of the Latin American and Mexican regional community with the world. The organization hosts free workshops, drawing sessions, contests, mentoring, and more, all centered around learning, sharing knowledge, and exchanging ideas.

Learn more about Letrástica.

Ricardo Saca is the US and Mexico managing partner for Cato Brand Partners, a global design and branding consultancy. He has a Master’s in Branding from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and has 20+ years of experience working with a wide range of companies, from startups to airlines. He is a plant-based animal lover and a cyclist.

The post Letrástica: Latin American Type to the World appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

For those who do not know Atrissi (who I met over 25 years ago when he was student at SVA MFA Design), his work has been exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York and is in the permanent design collection of the Affiche Museum in the Netherlands. He has taught at the American University in Dubai as well as the Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, and currently teaches at the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands. His research focuses on visual culture in the Middle East, as well as the history of graphic design practice in the Arab world. He is a founding member of The Design Alliance Asia, one of the most extensive collaborative networks of designers on the continent, with a shared vision of advancing Asian identity as a vital cultural force and a strategic platform for design.

Atrissi and I later reconnected to discuss his teaching work and Beirut today.

What was it like to be in a war zone once again? I understand that you managed to leave the city, but the psychological impact of the air raids must take a toll.
I grew up during the war. The first 12 years of my life—and hence most of my childhood—were spent in war-torn Lebanon. Some of my earliest memories as a child are from the 1982 Israeli invasion of Beirut.

When I decided to accept a teaching invitation at the American University of Beirut—my alma mater—I didn’t expect to find myself halfway through in a war zone again. Experiencing this situation as an adult feels surreal. It brings back many memories of the war. It makes me angry because I know what it is like to be a child living in war, and I don’t think any child should endure this. No child should be waiting for a ceasefire. I am also angry because the world is not doing enough to stop this. I am one of the privileged people who recently had the option to leave Lebanon and one of the fortunate ones who found a flight out of the country. But many—including my students, colleagues and their families—do not have this opportunity. Knowing what they are still going through is mentally exhausting.

What were you doing during the peaceful interim of your stay in Beirut? You’ve always been a type and lettering historian, have you continued to do that?
The first part of the semester was still peaceful—despite the uncertainties of an impending war. I managed to take advantage of being back in my hometown to pursue the urban typographic documentation I have always worked on in the Arab world: capturing the charming typographic landscape of Beirut. What fascinates me most about street typography in the city is the intersection of handlettering, classic Arabic calligraphy, and type, which creates a unique and rich visual language. Street typography has always been a major source of inspiration in my graphic work. Several identities we have conceived in my studio, Tarek Atrissi Design, were inspired by the typographic visual language of Arab-world streets. Many Arabic typefaces I’ve designed in our type foundry have drawn inspiration from the handlettering found in the streets of Beirut.

Since you were last in Beirut, I understand that the design archives have become more robust. What have you uncovered?
I finally managed to visit one of the most fascinating poster archives in Lebanon, City Lights Posters, and received a private, intensive tour of their new location. The collection contains spectacular film posters that capture unforgettable cinema memories from the Arab world, particularly from the golden age of Egyptian cinema. They are organized into different thematic categories and are remarkable in both the quality and variety of their illustrations and lettering. I can’t help but worry about the risk of possibly losing such a wonderful archive during the war. After all, the attacks on Lebanon are sparing neither cultural nor archaeological sites.

As part of my research work at the American University of Beirut, I have also been organizing, documenting, studying and analyzing a portion of my own design archive in Lebanon, which was given to me by my late grandfather, Chafik Nehme, a journalist who worked in publishing. The archive includes a wide range of printed items, such as an incredible collection of magazines, letterheads, booklets and brochures from across the Arab world, especially Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. The archive provides a unique insight into the history of Arabic graphic design in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Particularly intriguing to me are the various logos found on stationery items, the packaging design seen in advertisements, and the bilingual adaptation of typographic titles in brochures promoting films.

You collect other designers’ work and create your own graphic design as a response to past and present events. Can you share some of these?
As a graphic designer, part of my work has always been connected to the social and political reality around us. My strong stance against the violence taking place in the Middle East over the past year, particularly in Gaza and Lebanon, has resulted in a series of works ranging from poster designs to personal sketches and lettering calling for a ceasefire and denouncing war crimes and genocide. Another digital poster series celebrated the resilience and strength of Palestinian women facing displacement, visually reinterpreting old and new national and resistance symbols associated with their defiance.

The growing design community in the Arab world has been very active in producing a wide range of creative work to protest against these injustices. I have been actively collecting and documenting some of the most powerful and striking works produced, as I believe this will become a rich collection of meaningful contemporary graphic design and illustration in the Arab world today. The work of Mazen Kerbaj and Eline van Dam is an example of this strong body of work that has captured my attention.

What is it like for your students to be in the midst of war?
I am so proud of my students. They are living under the most extreme conditions—many of them displaced and all of them enduring daily heavy bombardment—yet they remain dedicated to their classes and eager to develop their design skills. Remarkably, they are producing solid typographic work in the visual identity classes I am teaching. Life always finds a way to continue during war, especially among the young and ambitious.

I am equally proud of my fellow teachers, who are working under unbearable conditions to keep classes going in any way possible. We all feel that design education, under these circumstances, is more important than ever and is our way of fighting back and understanding what we can do as designers.

Do you plan on returning to teach at the American University again once normality returns?
Yes, absolutely. I feel my work involvement in Lebanon is more important than ever. I am hoping this will be over next year so I can return and teach the fall semester and continue to work with the next generation of Lebanese designers.

The post The Daily Heller: Tarek Atrissi in Beirut Now appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Characters features typography from Tré Seals, founder of Vocal Type, and was designed with the Civilization team led by Principal and Owner Michael Ellsworth, and designer Mark Baker-Sanchez. If the exhibition sounds familiar, there was an inaugural showing in 2022 at the Branch Museum in Richmond, Virginia. In an interview about the Branch Museum exhibition for The Daily Heller, Seals was asked what story he wanted to tell through type. This is what he said:

These are the people whose small but impactful actions make movements move and whose stories must be celebrated as if they were those of royalty.

Tré Seals

I was curious about the new showing at MODA, both the expansion of the material to fill the new space and certainly, any new context important for the exhibition’s current form. Seals and Ellsworth were kind enough to answer a few questions (below).

Seals and Ellsworth answered the questions collaboratively, except where noted.

Tell us more about the exhibition and its relationship to the 2022 exhibition. What’s different in the MODA show? Why MODA?

The exhibition originally took shape in 2022 at the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design in Richmond, VA. With Characters, we wanted to create a site-specific experience. The Branch is housed in a historic mansion on Monument Avenue, right near the Robert E. Lee statue that was removed in 2021. In a setting historically reserved for portraits of white faces, we were inspired to create large-scale portraits of Black American social justice leaders, built out of typography. 

When MODA approached us, we knew we had to adapt the exhibition to its more modern, interactive space, which has a major focus on education and accessibility. We expanded the narrative by incorporating design elements like a newspaper format and interactive displays to make the content more engaging for visitors of all ages. Bringing writer Kaleena Sales on board also allowed us to deepen the storytelling by connecting the history of Black American liberation with broader, global movements for social justice.

Characters: Type in Action is organized around the power of typography to be a force of both liberation and oppression. How would you describe typography’s impact on both sides of the issue of social justice?

Typography has always played a dual role in shaping social narratives. It can amplify voices calling for change or perpetuate oppressive messages. Historically, some of the same letterpress typography used to advocate for the abolition of slavery was also used in slave auction ads. This exhibit emphasizes how typography’s power to add personality and emotion to communication can either unite or divide, depending on how it’s wielded. One example in the exhibition is VTC Ruby which reclaims the typeface formally known as Jim Crow. It was redesigned and renamed after Civil Rights icon Ruby Bridges, transforming the typeface that was once oppressive to one that is empowering.

This exhibit emphasizes how typography’s power to add personality and emotion to communication can either unite or divide, depending on how it’s wielded.

The exhibition looks at a wide variety of figures from social justice movements from civil rights to suffrage to LGBTQ+ rights. How did you decide who to feature?

We curated the exhibition to chronicle Black history through the lens of typography, dating back to the 1700s when Black enslaved artisans were forced to design runaway slave ads, right up to the 2024 presidential election. In curating the figures to include in the show, the goal was to provide a broad cross-section of Black American liberation–from LGBTQ+ rights, labor, suffrage, anti-war, anti-police brutality, and more. Every Vocal Type font is based on a historic social justice figure or movement and all of the typefaces in the show were drawn from the Vocal Type catalog–most are available for sale, were commissioned for social movements, or are works in progress.

Tell us about the new typefaces featured in Characters at MODA.

This new iteration of Characters includes a number of new stories and typefaces. We included W.E.B. Du Bois (VTC Du Bois) and the history of his powerful data visualizations that illustrated the inequities faced by Black Americans. Jimi Hendrix (VTC Jimi) was included to show how performance can be used as an act of protest. 

We also had the opportunity to include other figures and movements inspired by various Black liberation movements. We featured Eva Peron (VTC Eva) from the Argentinian women’s suffrage movement, Japanese American Tatsuro Matsuda’s stand against internment (VTC Tatsuro), and the protest in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing (VTC Tank Man). 

Three typefaces were used throughout the exhibition and The Vocal Civilian newspaper: A custom version of VTC Garibaldi, inspired by the anti-fascist liberation movement in Italy; BLM Foundation, created for the Black Lives Matter organization; and VTC Wolpe, which drew inspiration from the works of Berthold Wolpe, a Jewish type designer who fled Nazi Germany.

How did you come to collaborate with each other?

ME: The collaboration started back in 2020 when Civilization reached out to Tré as fans of Vocal Type. Civilization had an idea for a typography exhibition and wanted to feature Vocal Type (that show has since been put on the back burner). Just two weeks after chatting, the Branch Museum contacted Tré independently about curating a Vocal Type exhibition. This was the catalyst for our partnership and we have been collaborating ever since!

How have things changed since 2022, specifically relating to social justice? What is the role of design and typography in sparking progress, however incremental, and keeping the social justice conversation at the forefront?

Since 2022, the conversations around social justice have shifted dramatically. Issues like book bans, historical revisionism, and attacks on school curricula have grossly intensified.

As we are flooded with information and our attention spans wane, typography and design have a critical responsibility to make factual information accessible, clearly communicate complex messages, and help keep critical issues in the spotlight.

Thinking of the above, what was important to relay in the MODA show? What visual themes or design elements did you lean into?

Even as societal focus shifts, design can help important issues remain visible. Our goal with Characters is to keep history present and to illustrate the continuum of resistance. 

We built a layered experience that audiences could engage with on both a visceral level and by diving deep into the content. We leaned into visual themes of protest by using materials like newsprint, cardboard, and sign painting—echoing the visual language of grassroots activism. The idea was to create a space that felt like an immersive journey, where each element, from newspaper bins to large-scale typographic pieces, created an experience.

We leaned into visual themes of protest by using materials like newsprint, cardboard, and sign painting—echoing the visual language of grassroots activism.

What’s next for Civilization? Any big type (or other) projects you’re excited to bring to life (in the realm of social justice, civics, or an underrepresented initiative)?

ME: We were incredibly proud to have just launched a new site for the non-profit Now Matters Now. The site provides life-saving coping skills and community for when you’re on fire emotionally. Their team all has lived experience, whether it’s suicidal thoughts, addiction, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, or grief. Through their site and meetings they make their resources free and accessible to anyone, anytime. We are also working to expand Volumes, our public design library.

Tré, what part of our flawed history (or who) do you plan to tackle next? Are you excited about any upcoming projects or collaborations?

TS: I’m excited to find a new home for Characters and to expand The Vocal Civilian initiative. We designed the paper specifically for schools to be able to use as a resource in classrooms, to print, teach, and put on display. We’re also looking forward to releasing a new font family inspired by the events of November 5th, 2024.

Characters: Type in Action is on view at MODA until January 20, 2025.

Photography courtesy of MODA.

The post Vocal Type & Civilization Expand the Story of Type and Social Justice at MODA appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Cue the collective groan.

But, but! We’d be remiss if we didn’t pay our respects to this much-maligned specimen of typography history. I chatted with Monotype Creative Type Director Terrence Weinzierl, co-designer of the 2011 extension, Comic Sans Pro.

Fresh out of school, Weinzierl was working at Ascender during the MS Office 2010 release, working on bringing OpenType features to the software’s core typefaces (Comic Sans, Impact, Trebuchet, etc.).

“Vincent Connaire drew the original typeface using only his mouse. It was a digital typeface from birth,” Weinzierl said. “To create Pro, I mimicked Connaire’s process. Using a Wacom tablet, I drew all the new characters, ligatures, dingbats, swash caps, everything.” Weinzierl also designed italic styles (Connaire’s original only offered regular and bold).

“The irony was not lost on me—adding professional features to a cartoon typeface,” he said. “When we released the retail version as Comic Sans Pro, we did it on April Fools Day.”

But, for all the ridicule (even the self-deprecating kind), perhaps Comic Sans deserves a reconsideration.

In a recent conversation with Brad Atkinson, creator of the Braille Institute’s Atkinson Hyperlegible, I learned that teachers love Comic Sans. Classrooms have tested it against workhorses like Arial and Helvetica). Whether down to “ugliness” or its spacious aperture, students retained more of what they learned when it was delivered in Comic Sans.

There’s also some talk about Comic Sans being dyslexia-friendly (though I haven’t found any specific studies where the typeface was actually studied in this regard). The things that potentially make it so (such as open character spacing) are also true about many other typefaces.

“It’s so human, modest, and approachable, and people see themselves in it.” Weinzierl, who has a seven-year-old, said of Comic Sans’ appeal. “It doesn’t look serious or scary. You don’t want them to be overwhelmed by learning to read and write. Comic Sans looks like a child’s handwriting. It looks like how teachers teach kids to write letters (like the i with a serif or a single story a).”

There’s also the subtext of Comic Sans that speaks to a different kind of accessibility: it’s not for designers (read: it’s not for aesthetes), it’s democratic in its personality—an approachable font for everyone. And not only because it’s been on every Windows computer for decades.

One example of this is the let’s-just-call-it strategic use of the Comic Sans on Tory social feeds in the lead-up to the Brexit vote, which seemed to thumb its nose at the left-leaning voter with self-awareness. (It also could have come down to a split-second decision by a well-meaning intern on a fast-moving campaign, but exploring the former is interesting.)

Ten years ago, Comic Sans appeared on t-shirts in response to Eric Garner’s brutal murder at the hands of the NYPD. Garner’s words, “I can’t breathe,” laid out in all caps, overwhelmingly in Comic Sans, became a striking black-and-white show of solidarity worn by NBA players in the weeks after his death. Critics came calling. The content of the message wasn’t up for debate; the font choice was. But, as John Brownlee pointed out in Fast Company, “Comic Sans is better than any other font at conveying innocence.” What better way to illustrate the tragedy of Eric Garner’s senseless killing? “It can be a very powerful typeface when used well,” Brownlee wrote.

The shirt the Bull’s Derrick Rose wore during pre-game warm-up is now in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture.

Isn’t design’s highest power in sparking conversation?

Great Design is always up for debate. Great, after all, is subjective. It can be a bit like Marmite—you’re a fan or not. Good design, however, is effective design—effective in delivering information to encourage a response.

“It’s not just a joke typeface,” said Weinzierl. “It’s also very human. Art doesn’t have to be beautiful to be effective.” In this, Comic Sans will continue to have a role to play.

While there are no plans to design a Comic Sans 3.0, if Weinzierl was tasked with this challenge, he said it would be all about the variability. But, he also acknowledges that, especially with a typeface like Comic Sans, it wouldn’t be recognizable if you change the core too much. “It would have to balance newness and comfort and maintain a lot of that original DNA.”

Let’s be honest. If someone were to create a contemporary take on Comic Sans, imagine, for a moment, the ensuing firestorm from all sides of the debate. In its own way, Weinzierl believes that Comic Sans is an artifact and an icon.

When I asked him about his favorite sighting of Comic Sans in the wild, he said. “I saw it on a menu at a local Thai restaurant. Seeing it used in a fast-casual noodle shop was memorable but maybe not my favorite. It’s interesting when it shows up in places like that. A professional designer didn’t design it, but it’s endearing. I respect the restaurant owner for the choice.”

“Comic Sans is kind of like Crocs,” Weinzierl said. “It doesn’t have to be a formal, slick typeface to be a successful thing.”

So, happy 30th, Comic Sans. In the words of a fellow designer,

What would our visual landscape be without dear Comic Sans? It tries so hard to be liked
and knows no limits of context, taking even the most serious things in stride. But watch out—
it can stir lollipop cravings and send one’s imagination out on roller skates!

Don Tarallo, Typeface Designer and Graphic Designer, Tarallo Design

The post For Comic Sans’ 30th Birthday, a Reconsideration? appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

These are some of the questions UK-based graphic designer Conor Foran found himself asking, spurred by his own journey with stammering. This reflection led to his development of the Dysfluent Mono typeface along with his wider project, Dysfluent, in 2017.

Through art, design, and curation, Dysfluent intersects the lived experience of dysfluency with creativity, activism, and social justice. Through Dysfluent, Foran collaborates with people who stammer, artists, speech therapists, academics, activists, organizations, and allies. One component of the Dysfluent project is an independent magazine of the same name, that explores the lived experience of stammering. Designed by Foran, the publication deploys the Dysfluent Mono typeface throughout its eye-catching and thoughtful pages, that visually portray the sounds, rhythms, patterns, and experiences of a stammer.

Foran has released two issues of the magazine, with a third currently in production. A digital version of issues one and two are available through Dysfluent’s online shop, with a hard copy of issue two distributed in the UK, Europe, Asia, and North America by Antenne Books.

More than a magazine, Foran has created a movement. Using his skills as a graphic designer and keen editorial design eye, through Dysfluent, Foran has helped cultivate a community centered around celebration and reclamation for those who stutter.

Stammering pride contends that verbal diversity is rich with meaning in its own right, and deserves to exist outside of a clinical lens of needing to be “fixed” or “cured.” 

Today, October 22nd, marks International Stuttering Awareness Day, a moment dedicated to sharing information about the realities of stuttering more widely and honoring the stuttering community at large. We’re thrilled to highlight Dysfluent and Foran’s work as part of the international celebration. Foran answered a few of my questions about the Dysfluent story below, including reflections on his editorial design, developing the Stammering Pride flag, and what he has planned next for the project.

Can you describe Dysfluent and its mission? What are you hoping to accomplish with Dysfluent?

Dysfluent is a collaborative and creative practice about stammering, a speech disability (also known as stuttering). Through art and design, it intersects the lived experience of dysfluency with creativity, activism, and social justice. So far, it has produced a stammering font, a magazine, a stammering pride flag, and, most recently, a billboard for Whitney Museum’s 2024 Biennial in New York City.

Dysfluent is led by me, Conor Foran. I collaborate with people who stammer, artists, speech therapists, academics, activists, organizations, and allies from around the world to contribute to a growing stuttering culture based around pride. Stammering pride contends that verbal diversity is rich with meaning in its own right and deserves to exist outside of a clinical lens of needing to be “fixed” or “cured.”

What’s the origin story of Dysfluent? How did the idea for a magazine reflecting the stammering community come about?

Dysfluent as a project happened very much organically, as I investigated my relationship with my own speech. While I am a proud person who stammers now, I wasn’t back in 2017 when I started creating the Dysfluent Mono typeface and magazine in college. Looking back, the project was a form of self-therapy that I still practice today. 

My experience with speech therapy was limited, and I wasn’t part of the stammering community as I am now. When creating content for the magazine, I met another person who stammers for the first time. What was an intensely personal project naturally evolved into a community-facing one. I’m very grateful to the stammering community that has embraced all the Dysfluent projects, from everyday people who stammer and parents of kids who stammer, to academics and therapists. 

The typeface is used in the magazine to proudly represent the voice of the interviewees. The magazine explores the lived experience of stammering through interviews and essays, facilitating contrasting and challenging views. It has published two issues so far. 

When it comes to the design of the magazine (and your beautiful website, merch, flag, etc.) can you speak to some of the visual choices you made to reflect stammering and how those were developed?

The typeface Dysfluent Mono is based on the three kinds of stammering: repetitions, prolongations, and blocks. I made special letterforms that repeat parts of themselves until they form the actual character, as well as characters that stretch their forms. Blocks are represented as multiple spaces. While ideas of stammering pride didn’t really exist when I created the typeface, looking back, the approach I took was very pride-coded. I interpreted my speech as forming over time, rather than being fragmented or broken. To consider stammering or dysfluency as not the antithesis of fluency is still a radical idea for a lot of people. 

To consider stammering or dysfluency as not the antithesis of fluency is still a radical idea for a lot of people.

For Issue 2 two, I asked how can a magazine itself stammer? The cover unfolds to reveal an inner dialogue amongst stammering letterforms. The issue’s title stammers across the spine. The “pull quotes” remain in their paragraphs, challenging the idea of the perfectly said phrase. Each interview is set in Dysfluent Mono. The expressive, typographic illustrations are inspired by the uniqueness of the interviewee’s voice. The magazine creatively questions society’s obsession with hyper-fluency, which leaves little room for organic moments in language.

Outside of the magazine, the typeface has been used in ZEIT and the “Stuttering Can Create Time” billboard for Whitney Museum’s 2024 Biennial with the collective People Who Stutter Create.

How have your skills as a graphic designer given you the power to make such an impact in stammering awareness?

My interest in typography in college laid the foundations for me to reconsider how my own voice could be represented in text. Making stammering visually beautiful, striking, and in some ways appealing empowers, me (and other people) to be proud of how I talk. I think it also speaks to a wider idea of what it means to be legible in both a linguistic and typographic sense. There is value to be found in visual and auditory dysfluency.

Making stammering visually beautiful, striking, and in some ways appealing empowers, me (and other people) to be proud of how I talk.

The medical model of needing to “fix” the stammer has dominated the stammering community up until a few years ago. As such, the graphic design of stammering only existed in clinical or organizational spaces. A lot of this visual design relies on tropes such as mouths, speech bubbles, and splintered, fractured, or broken typography.

There is now an emerging stuttering culture of visual art, design, music, poetry, and literature that explore the generative power of dysfluency by people who stammer, such as JJJJJerome Ellis, Willemijn Bolks, Paul Aston, and Jordan Scott. I consider my work in the stammering community to push past awareness and instead instill action. As the world becomes more and more accepting of difference, why shouldn’t stammering be included too?

I consider my work in the stammering community to push past awareness and instead instill action. As the world becomes more and more accepting of difference, why shouldn’t stammering be included too?

What was the development process of the Stammering Pride flag like? Can you unpack the design for me a bit?

The Making Waves flag was made by seven people who stammer from various countries: JJJJJerome Ellis, Kristel Kubart, Laura Lascău, Patrick Campbell, Paul Aston, Ramdeep Roman, and myself. We’ve titled it “a stammering pride flag” as it’s up to people who stammer if they identify with this design and approach we have taken. This flag is an invitation.

Water has long been associated with stammering and speech. We were eager to build upon work by the stammering community in a meaningful way, emphasizing that stuttering is as natural as whirling waves and calm creeks. The design visualizes three values: the sea-green symbolizes the existing community that has used this color for stuttering awareness since 2009; the wave motif symbolizes stammering as a natural, varied phenomenon; and the ultramarine symbolizes the progress and passion of the stuttering pride movement.

The flag has been flown by people all around the world. Kids who stammer and their parents have also responded to it so well, which has been a really amazing surprise!

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced with this project so far? What’s been the most rewarding aspect?

The biggest challenge I’ve faced is finding time to work on it! While I feel like I’ve produced a lot under the Dysfluent name, I still have so many ideas I want to develop. But because it’s a niche, there isn’t much money to be made, so it can be hard to devote time to the work.

My biggest reward has definitely been finding community. It still amazes me when I get an email or message from someone in a far-away country wanting to collaborate or just describing how Dysfluent represents them so well. The project also allows me to be a designer, artist, writer, facilitator… basically anything that needs to be done. While I enjoy being a generalist, it’s also taught me the importance of collaboration. 

What do you have planned next for Dysfluent?

The next Dysfluent-ism is an upcoming visual art exhibition in London, titled “Wouldn’t You Rather Talk Like Us?” with painter Paul Aston. It’s opening on November 29 and is supported by Arts Council England. The hand-made Making Waves flag will be on show in addition to some new work I can’t wait for people to see!

I’m also excited to start working on Issue 3 of the magazine next year. Overall, I’ll continue to position Dysfluent as a collaborative practice— forming alliances with people who stammer, therapists, and academics, to create work that both celebrates and challenges what we think about stammering.

The post Conor Foran Spreads Stammering Pride through ‘Dysfluent’ Magazine appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

As with Applied Design Works’ collaboration with the Braille Institute on Atkinson Hyperlegible in 2021 and, more recently, Typotheque’s Zed typeface and others, Pablo Navarlaz set out with his final degree project, Frecuencias Divergentes, to “improve the reading experience for people with low vision through typography.”

What began as a question for Navarlaz—Could I create a typeface that could better leverage individual capabilities?— soon turned into a deep research exercise. He combed through findings from two centuries of legibility studies but found a lack of consensus, contradictory results, and missing typography expertise. “There was a lot of chaos within the research,” said Navarlaz.

“I also noticed that there is always an attempt to standardize the term legibility as if there were a typeface with superior legibility and configuration,” explained Navarlaz. “This is a mistake because each person has a different background, different visual conditions, and different environments where they perform best, and we cannot assume that what works best for the majority should be the standard, as this would marginalize many people.”

It was a massive endeavor, so Navarlaz had to narrow his approach. He started with variable typeface as a baseline, to which he explored classic variables (weight, width, and contrast) because he said, “They are the main variables that modify the relationship between black and white (we don’t just read the “black” but also the white, the paper).” To the three classic variables, he added in x-height (a key factor for legibility, generally). Navarlaz also looked at Dwiggins’ “m-formula,” being interested in the late designer’s work. (Dwiggins posited that flat and angular planes were more expressive in smaller use cases than their curved counterparts.)

As a test case, Navarlaz created the typeface Ivy Flex. He readily admits that it is not the most legible typeface ever designed. “Claiming that would be contrary to the project,” he said. “It is simply a sample of the methodology I propose in Frecuencias Divergentes. The methodology is based on avoiding standards, offering as many adjustments as possible so that the best option can be found for each context.”

Navarlaz doesn’t have plans to sell the typeface or stop his research, saying:

I believe the project helps to raise awareness and clarify certain issues, warn about others, and propose alternatives. The methodologies I propose are just the beginning, and I would like to see more people working on and exploring the subject, as it has many possibilities and great potential to help many people.

Pablo Navarlaz

Frecuencias Divergentes has won awards at the ei! awards at Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering and Brut! 2024.

Learn more about Pablo Navarlaz and his thesis project.

The post Pablo Navarlaz’s Design Thesis is the Latest Research into Typography for Low Vision appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“Letters are magic” is the watchword of Jessica Hische, one of the world’s leading lettering artists. “Letters are an amazing playground,” she says, “a playground for art and creativity. They’re an art form that gets kids — and everyone — believing they’re artists.” But it’s inaccurate to call Hische “just” a lettering artist. She’s a bestselling author, a graphic designer with an enviable client list, and an illustrator with a delightfully sophisticated style.

She’s also the mother of three school-age children, which gives her an insider advantage when it comes to creating books that kids will love and parents will want to buy (and read aloud and collect and display). It’s no accident that her books‚ which are one hundred percent Hische productions from the cover and spine to the acknowledgments page — have sold up to 200,000 copies each.

On October 22 — that’s next Tuesday — her fifth picture book, My First Book of Fancy Letters, will be released by Penguin Random House, and Hische is currently on tour.

What places does she most enjoy visiting? Elementary schools, of course, like the two pictured above, where she’s introducing her 2021 New York Times bestseller Tomorrow I’ll Be Brave. “Kids at first don’t know what a lettering artist is,” she explains. (For a detailed explanation yourself, please see her 2015 book In Progress: Inside a Lettering Artist’s Process from Pencil to Vector.)

To break the ice at a school visit, Hische might ask, “Who has letters on their shirt?” Many kids always raise their hands, so she explains, “An artist drew those letters and made them into what they wanted to express.”

She then demonstrates that letters can have all kinds of forms and meanings. As long as the basic shape of the alphabet letter is clear, it can be Athletic, Bubbly, Creepy … or whatever you, the artist, want it to be. I personally appreciate that each letter is shown as a grown-up capital and a baby lowercase because 95 percent of the letters we read in text are lowercase. Kids who start first grade only knowing the uppercase letters are at a big disadvantage.

Spreads ABC and DEF from My First Book of Fancy Letters, © Jessica Hische, 2024

Hische might then ask, “What’s your favorite thing?” If a student says, “a rainbow,” she might encourage them to draw an ‘R’ made from a rainbow, like the one in the spread below. If another student answers, “A rocket ship,” you can already visualize the kind of ‘R’ the child will draw. This game has only one rule: you must draw the alphabet letter that matches the concept or word. So, if the word is “Prickly,” like in My First Book of Fancy Letters, in which each letter illustrates an adjective, the ‘P’ is a prickly green cactus.” The ‘F’ is definitely Flowery. And the ‘Y’ is as Yummy as a cookie with pink icing and sprinkles.

Spreads PQR and XYZ from My First Book of Fancy Letters, © Jessica Hische, 2024

“I’m not there to sell books,” Hische says of her school visits. “I’m there to inspire the kids, especially when they’re still at the age when their brains are mushy sponges. Even if the book is not specifically about letters, they’ll walk away inspired to draw letters.” Her way of organizing a talk or pitch — totally involving the audience in a creative process — could be a model for all of us.

A quick stroll through Hische’s website tells you that “lettering artist-author-designer-illustrator-mom” is still an incomplete bio. Hische is a true entrepreneur. In addition to 20 years — and counting — as a design firm principal, creating logos, posters, book jackets, packaging, and all kinds of cool stuff like holiday cookie jars for A-list clients, she owns two retail stores in her adopted hometown of Oakland, California. She describes Drawling as a kids’ art supply store and Jessica Hische &Friends as a showcase for her books and lots of flourish-y things she’s designed: limited-edition prints, posters, apparel, jewelry, and note cards. Many of the products are on the ‘shop’ section of her website, where font packages of her six original typefaces are available for sale and download — so that you, too, can design with very fancy letters.

A few examples from the extensive Jessica Hische portfolio. (l-r) Top row: Spread from the book Tomorrow You’ll Be Brave; Popcorn can from the Neiman Marcus 2022 holiday packaging suite; Poster for all-star Scott Rudin film. Center: Neiman Marcus Christmas cookie jar, based on a ceramic tree that Hische’s grandmother put out every holiday season; Promotion for a master class she teaches for Skillshare featuring her hands refining the Mailchimp logo. Bottom: Poster for the American Red Cross encouraging vaccination; Main title design and poster for Lionsgate film; Poster for Comcast used as set decoration in a film in which E.T. reunites with Elliott’s earth family; Limited-edition print.

Hische is the first to admit that from kindergarten on, she was the one whose art was most often displayed on school bulletin boards. After attending public schools in the small town in Pennsylvania where she grew up, she became “a design major who did illustration on the side” at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, graduating in 2006 with a BFA. In 2007 she came to New York to be a junior designer at Louise Fili LTD, bringing her own historically-based swashes and ligatures to the firm’s work in logo, book, and postage stamp design. Not surprisingly, the job soon became a full-time senior designer position.

“When I’m looking to hire a designer,” Fili says, “I want to see at least one portfolio piece that I wish I’d done. Jessica’s was a set of postcards for the Twelve Days of Christmas, a showcase of her skills. From day one here, she was fearless. To anything I asked of her — Can you make this type look like spaghetti? Like embroidery? Oatmeal? Ribbons? — I received an affirmative response. And the lettering was always, of course, perfect.” 

In 2009, Hische began freelancing in New York, making a name for herself and winning just about every award and accolade in the business. In 2011, her husband, the musician and web designer, now Meta design director Russ Maschmeyer, was hired by Facebook, and they moved to the Bay Area.

Hische and Maschmeyer began growing their family in 2015, now with kids aged nine, seven, and five. “I have a complicated life,” she admits, “but I could never miss one of my kids’ first steps or birthday parties. We’ll even make the cake together. Part of the reason I’ve kept my businesses small — mostly just me — is to have a ton of flexibility around family stuff. I love going to their school plays, volunteering at the school, and bringing them to sports. I’m even taking karate with my middle son!”

Letters are an amazing playground.

Jessica Hische

Portrait of the family, © Rasmus Andersson

What are the most important things Jessica Hische wants everyone to know? One: that every letter in her books is hand-drawn, first in pencil, then in Illustrator or Procreate. Other than the glyphs in the font packages, each letter is a unique work of art. Two: that she hopes that the kids (and grown-ups) on your gift list will make their own fancy letters. And have lots of fun doing it.

With Hische, even an interview can be lots of fun.

Images courtesy of Jessica Hische, except where noted.

The post Letters are Magic in Jessica Hische’s New Children’s Book appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

It might be considered a gimmick, except that I lived it: days of agony and mental confusion, endless sketches (sometimes in the hundreds), mornings of critique that, instead of feeling like a lifesaver, felt more like a heavy object keeping me down and even more confused.

The bitter joy of beginning, I called it. I had come back to school to do something. Graphic design was a remote idea. My neighbor was a commercial artist, but outside of that, the words “graphic design” were pretty unknown to me.

My itch for the arts started early. So did my penchant for filling notebook after notebook with drawings and even novels. I wish I had them today. Only their memory remains between so many moves and my mom’s cleaning sprees. I drew. If I was bored, I drew. If I was sad, I drew. If I was passing the time, I drew. The ping pong tables at my house and my aunt’s house were more like huge spaces to draw. Comments about my talent would always follow, but back then, being an artist was the realm of bohemians, and my dad would have none of it.

But, when I said I wanted to be an architect, ah! That was different. There was a tangible option for me. The problem? There was only one school of architecture. Admission was a separate process from university admission and was very competitive. To say that I was intimidated is an understatement.

Nonetheless, I took the admission exam. When the results came, I did the math, and 13 points kept me from the minimum required to enter. I was crushed, lost, and confused. And a decade-long journey to find my place ensued.

I craved and missed art making after working as a junior high school teacher for nearly five years. A relocation to Ames, Iowa, a visit to ISU, a conversation with an admission advisor, a poster on the wall, and I enrolled to get a second bachelor’s degree, but this time in graphic design. At least initially—my art education portfolio did not have the breadth of work needed to be accepted into the MFA in Graphic Design program.

Nothing prepared me for my first graphic design class. Typefaces, fonts, letters, compositions, abstractions … What do you mean when you say not to stretch the letters?? I felt like a fish out of water. Approximately ten years older than my classmates, with no computer knowledge and unmentionable names for the computer, my desire to study graphic design soon vanished.

Coming to critique to present a body of work that, by my current standard, was nothing outside of deplorable, and receiving comments that signaled the death of my graphic design career left me hopeless. But I wanted to fight. I wanted to understand, even if I left the program. So, I pestered my professors. I was relentless.

There was so much I did not know or understand. But, there was so much I already knew and understood. My process was second to none. I researched, researched, and researched. I sketched and sketched some more. The gap between the sketches and the computer was vast. My typographic skills were clunky, but while I worked on those, I banked on the skills I had: reading, writing, and sketching. Concepts and reasoning came easily to me; execution would take me much longer.

Some of my students are like I was: eager but confused or lost. Some are eager but unwilling to put in the work day and day out. Some students have a more or less stronger foundation than others in the class, and thus, a chip on their shoulder. Every one of my students reminds me of who I was when I came back to school at different stages. And yet, the work I have seen since I started teaching typography has been better than what I presented that one October morning in 1994.

I keep the process binders because they remind me that the path to mastery does not end. Each mastery of a skill is nothing but a semicolon, a colon, or an ampersand in the long sentences that come thereafter. That process is nothing but beautiful. It is one thing when someone tells you they were bad at something. It is quite another when they come out with the images and show you. I do not edit that out of my life. It is a sweet reminder that growth is always attainable.

Alma Hoffmann is a freelance designer, design educator, author of Sketching as Design Thinking, and editor at Smashing Magazine. This is an edited version of a post originally published on Temperamental amusing shenanigans, Alma’s Substack dedicated to design, life, and everything in between.

Imagery © 2024, Alma Hoffmann.

The post The Bitter Joy of Beginning appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Designed by Anton Studer (Rektorat, Nouvelle Grotesk), two fundamental visual principles form Pivot Grotesk’s design logic: rays and spirals. Human movement evokes the first of these (radial movement, or lines diverging from a common center—legs walking, the hands of a clock, the stripes fanning out from the circus tent top). The second is the universe (logarithmic spirals, so common in nature, rule the rotation of planets around gravitational forces in the Milky Way).

As headlines, these two principles drive Pivot Grotesk’s visual impact, but the typeface also has legibility and subtle style for smaller uses. Pivot Grotesk is available in eight weights and two character sets, covering Latin and Baltic/Slavic languages (obviously, they’ve included some fun spiral glyphs).

The studio designed a version of Pivot Grotesk as a custom typeface for Theater Basel. The original, created as part of the new identity for the opera and ballet venue, has been refined for commercial release, living up to its full pirouetting potential.

Learn more and try Pivot Grotesk at nouvellenoire.ch.

The post Pivot Grotesk is Inspired by Two Visual Principles at the Center of Everything appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I spoke to Schütz to learn more about the studio’s type in motion.

Do you see graphic design and typography as moving ever more toward motion?
Absolutely. Digital applications of typography are becoming dominant, with more and more text displayed on screens. In the realm of display type especially, motion has become a powerful tool for creating expressive design. Motion is now as fundamental to the typographic systems we develop for clients as letterform, color and layout. It’s an elemental feature we incorporate into every project.

Many designers use tools as if they were toys to be played with. I for one have secretly been toying with some AI, but will try hard not to use it for creation.
We like to approach the creative process with a playful mindset. To encourage this, we often adapt our tools—or create new ones—that support or even enforce this mindset. For instance, we replaced the standard mouse and keyboard input with a gamepad, which is typically used in a recreational setting. The muscle memory from the gamepad tricks your brain into feeling like you’re playing rather than working, which changes the vibe and the creative output.

What are, in your opinion, the most significant of all the tools you have conceived?
I’d say the tool we call touchtype. It’s the product of a long, iterative process that started years before the current version was finalized and put online. This tool embodies everything we aim for when developing new tools: It’s innovative, intuitive and playful. Plus, it supports a fast-paced, experimental workflow for creating lettering, which is central to our approach.

Your studio is both a business and a recreational venue. How do you achieve balance?
Our projects naturally define the business side—meetings, planning, deadlines, and so on. Even during periods of intense work, though, we make a point of blocking out time in the calendar for creative, playful projects and discussions. During the summer, we start most days with a relaxed espresso meeting outside, talking about personal things and design ideas. Many of our best concepts have started in this “recreation time.”

How do you expect the studio to progress in the future?
I think our design practice will always be shaped by the projects that come our way. But we’d like to use our free projects to guide the studio towards more experimental and interactive typography. Ideally, clients will come to us for work that satisfies both our creative interests and business goals.

What is on the drawing board now?
We’re currently working on several typographic tools, both commissioned and personal projects. I’m excited to share them once they’re finished! 

The post The Daily Heller: Experimental, Playful and Practical Lettering appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Designed by the Switzerland-based duo of Noël Leu and Tobias Rechsteiner and produced in collaboration with Italian designer Antonio D’Elisiis, GT Pantheon found initial inspiration in the architectural details and letterforms of Rome’s Pantheon. This influence can be seen in its pointed serifs, chiseled transitions, and sharp digital anatomy, “unimpressed by the ink,” that can soften historic letterforms.

Its chiseled-in-stone aesthetic offers legibility and style that translates from micro to text to display; the core of GT Pantheon’s concept is three optically adjusted faces designed to render the typeface’s best expression at every size and in every use case.

GT Pantheon owes its versatility in working beautifully at any size to Leu and Rechsteiner’s use of a contemporary calligraphic approach. The duo used a broad-nib pen to play with the letterforms; their approach comes to life in the sharp points denoting directional changes in flow and points of horizontal and vertical stress.

GT Pantheon is available in 30 styles across five weights and italics, plus two variable fonts and a bevy of Latin-alphabet language support.

Leu and Thierry Blancpain founded Grilli Type in 2008. Now eight strong, the team is dispersed around the globe, with offices in Lucerne and New York. “Just because we’re Swiss, doesn’t mean we’re neutral,” Grilli Type proudly announces on their website—and indeed, the foundry is known for high-quality retail typefaces and commissioned typefaces and wordmarks with a definite “point of view.”

Learn more about GT Pantheon and try it before you buy it.

The post Chisel & Flow: GT Pantheon is a New Classic appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I spoke to Millet about her process of creating Hardanger, and our conversation is below.

Can you talk about your inspiration for Hardanger?

Hardanger is inspired by a traditional Norwegian embroidery style, which alternates full and empty squares. This technique has a geometric aspect that I really like. I spent a semester in Oslo as part of my master’s degree in graphic design and it was during these months that I first saw this Norwegian embroidery. I started creating the Hardanger base on my return home as part of a school project. 

At first, I hadn’t made the connection between the embroidery I’d discovered in Norway and the letters I’d made—it wasn’t until I reworked it two years later that I realized that much of my inspiration came from my exchange.

For Hardanger, did you start with an existing typeface as a baseline? How did you go about designing the letterforms? Did you have to teach yourself needlepoint?

Hardanger comes straight from my head. I built Hardanger on a 7-pixel grid, inspired by embroidery but also by 8-bit typography from video games. I set myself precise constraints, such as having “open” intersections so as not to weigh the typography down visually. I had to make compromises between building legible letters and preserving the aesthetics of the embroidery. In the regular version, each intersection is “empty” to match the Hardanger embroidery principle of embroidered full and empty squares. In italics, the font looks more like a cursive, reinforcing the traditional look. I wanted the whole typography to resemble a large embroidery: a decorative element. I added combinable ornaments to reinforce this idea.

I tried cross-stitching myself, but it was a failure! However, my mother used to do it and tried to teach me. She embroidered the Hardanger A and it was really nice to see the font come to life on fabric.

Is there a particular letterform in Hardanger that you love more than the others? Conversely, which letterform took the longest to get it just right?

Overall, I’m quite happy with all the letters, with a slight preference for A, D, and X! The biggest difficulty was the ø because of the pixel size and the aperture of the O, as well as managing the spacing between the letters. I kept my 7-pixel grid for this stage, too, and it was quite difficult to get a harmonious whole given the shape of the letters.

How did technology and traditional craft come together for you in the design of Hardanger?

When creating the letters, I also looked for references to pixel typography, which was generally very detailed (with a little pixel) and really looked like the letters you’d find on embroidery primers. My idea was to break with this very traditional look by bringing in a modern touch, and I made the connection with the 8-bit/retro style. I tried to find a balance between these two worlds, as the pixel was the basis of my research. I wanted it to be large to resemble 8-bit without falling too much into this category; it’s also this size that enabled me to create openings in my letters to make them lighter and more delicate. I find it interesting to confront two seemingly opposite concepts to create a rich and complex design.

Given our state of constant overstimulation, the volume of work being generated, and now, with AI, how can type designers design something that hasn’t been seen before? Does it matter?

I think most concepts have been done before, especially in the field of typography. The challenge is to take an idea that may have been seen before and take it in a different direction to create a unique result (this is partly why I mixed the world of embroidery and retro video games, even though I honestly think Hardanger resembles other existing typography). It’s important to be aware of this so as not to plagiarize and to be able to stand out. Sometimes, certain characters look the same from one typeface to another, but this is also due to the constraints of the letters.

I don’t think it’s a problem that there are so many typefaces already, it’s a bit like telling painters to stop making new paintings because there are already too many. Typography evolves with the times, and it’s cool to see new ones coming out. In my opinion, we’ll always find a way to create new shapes, or a very particular universe for a typeface.

What’s your next challenge— any exciting projects or creative explorations, type or otherwise, on the horizon?

After Hardanger and its playful, colorful universe, I’m going for a monospace typeface, this time inspired by the first Industrial Revolution. I’m still in the testing and research phase, playing with large serifs. I’m also working on another typeface, with more or less slanted italic versions.

Hardanger is available in regular, italic, and three alternate styles. Check out Millet’s other work on her portfolio site and on Instagram. Learn more about Norwegian embroidery.

The post Stitches Meet Pixels in this Typeface Inspired by Norwegian Embroidery appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

This story framed the introduction of design anthropologist Keith Murphy‘s 2017 article, “Fontroversy! Or, How to Care About the Shape of Language.” As an Associate Professor of Anthropology at UC Irvine, Murphy (left) spends much of his time researching the intersection of design and human culture, specifically typography. Murphy describes type in this same chapter as “an ever-present formalization of language in the everyday world,” [insert smart academic prose here], and that “typefaces often operate as familiar mechanisms through which broader social and political struggles are able to unfold.”¹

He contends that the friction between design and humankind often comes alive in type. Enter the “fontroversy.”

Microsoft’s default font change from Calibri to Aptos initially sparked my interest in talking with Murphy. But as we spoke, I wanted to learn more about the work of a design anthropologist (fascinating job alert!), what he calls the “golden age of fontroversy” in the early-mid-2010s, in addition to getting his thoughts on the latest episode of type friction. Our conversation is below (lightly edited for length and clarity).

As an anthropologist, how did you get interested in researching design, specifically type and type designers?

My interest in design was accidental (I was originally interested in studying hand gestures). One of my grad school advisors suggested that I look at architects (because they gesture a lot). I started studying a group of architects in LA and looked at how they used their hands to speak to one another as they designed a building. Through that experience, I became interested in the design process, specifically, what humans do when designing. We know what design is anecdotally through the voices of famous designers in history. But what is actually going on when designers are designing? From there, it took me ten years to figure out exactly what I was interested in.

Then, I went to Sweden and fell in love with everyday objects. I already had a personal interest in graphic design and typography (as a self-taught graphic designer). As an anthropologist, I started to think of designing as a fundamental form of human action. Type is the smallest expression of this.

It was the early 2010s, a time rife with people getting angry about fonts. I started to wonder what was going on. So, I started systematically looking at why people get so worked up about fonts.

his line of research led me to look at the people who design fonts, so I started studying their processes. This led me to letterpress, which led to neon sign making, which opened up many different lettering communities.

What did you discover about the early-mid 2010s that made it ripe for fontroversy?

If brands are contracts between a company and a customer, type is doing some work in that. If you make the wrong choice (going generic instead of iconic), then you have violated the relationship that you have with the consumer. A lot of this is unconscious. We relate to and trust brands. If you choose to mess that up, it’s like being slapped in the face as a consumer.

Consumers have become more savvy (maybe not even aware of how much we’re attuned to it—we can’t help but think about it). The internet made it possible for us to find each other and complain.

Social media was not yet a cesspool. People were gathering online; forums were still popular. People started to talk about it, share it, and share images. Blogs were still a thing. My educated guess is that this period saw the convergence of brand needs and the ability for people to share their thoughts.

Tropicana [2009] and The Gap [2010 one week!)] are two big cases of having to walk back their big brand rollouts; JCPenney [2012] kept the new logo (though they switched it back several years later). Black and Decker might have been in the mix, too.

It’s like a haircut or new glasses (you notice something different in what you take for granted), and it might be a subtle enough change, but people know it’s different, and there’s friction in the perception. There’s a zone of tolerance where people might notice the change and not react badly, but if it’s too far out of the zone, like Tropicana and the Gap, people notice enough to form judgments about it and decide if it’s good or bad.

Southwest [2014], I think, got it right.

One big change during that time was cell phones—iPhones came out in 2007 but didn’t really take off until 2010. Brands started to realize that they needed to translate to smaller screens. The Tropicana logo would’ve been hard to render on a small screen. Many brands were simplifying their logos to look better on screens. But if all brands are doing this, then they all start to look alike. That sparked some of the reaction: They’re all Helvetica rip-offs! It all looks like Helvetica!

I tried to find examples of people getting upset about fonts prior to the internet, and nothing quite fit how this unfolded in the 2010s. I found an instance of the name of a font in Emigre in the 90s causing some anger (but that wasn’t unusual for Emigre). Since 2016-17, fontroversies are much rarer. When Ikea switched from Futura to Verdana in 2010, it was a PR crisis for the company—spokespeople had to explain things. But, in 2019, when they switched from Verdana to Noto, the news was barely covered.

Brands are also learning how to better roll out changes to mitigate reactions.

Talk about the Microsoft “fontroversy?” I certainly heard about it, but it hasn’t risen to the level of some of the rollouts you just mentioned.

I’ve been reading different forums to get a sense of what people are saying. It’s more mixed than I expected it to be. There’s a general sense of I hate it anytime a company switches (which is more about change). One of the reasons I think people react is: I’m used to one way, and now it’s different. There’s something interesting in that. It shows some violation of ‘this should be invisible’ (it is until it’s not).

The differences between Calibri and Aptos are minuscule. Many people didn’t notice. The New York Times framed an article about that, asking if people noticed. Then, it slowly started trickling out that something was different, appearing on forums and in the news. It’s the most recent example of a fontoversy that broke the barrier of professional attention. It was nothing like Comic Sans—it won’t reach the level of some other controversies. It’s about choice and change: ‘I hate it.’ ‘It’s ugly.’ ‘I like what I had before.’

It’s also different because Microsoft weirdly rolled it out as a brand exercise (without admitting it as such). It has all the hallmarks of a brand rollout. Some official explanations were, “We want something new and fresh” and “Calibri is getting old.” People still use Baskerville and other typefaces that have been around for decades. And we also keep redesigning the same typefaces. So the idea that something that is 17 years old is old doesn’t pass the smell test. They also said something about technology for higher-resolution screens. A lot of Microsoft’s explanation is the story constructed around it. The changes between the letterforms are tiny, but the hype around the switch brought more attention to it—attention that benefits the company in a good way without having to make a major change that would likely upset a lot of people.

What iconic logo wordmark do you think is overdue for an overhaul?

The one that comes to mind is GE. I’m torn because it’s so iconic and recognizable, but also so juvenile. To me, it just screams we’ve been doing it a long time, and we’re just going to keep doing it. It existed long before I was born and would definitely benefit from a redesign. But while it’d be exciting to see what happens as an anthropologist, it’s not something I would want to touch as a designer!

It would also be interesting to consider mass transit, playing with the iconic letters that identify the systems, the T in Boston, for example. But that would never happen. During a station renovation a few years ago in the DC Metro, signmakers used the same font [Helvetica after Massimo Vignelli’s iconic M] but a different style [Black instead of Bold]. It still did its job as a wayfinding tool, but people noticed, and the Metro scrambled to fix it.

When Murphy first started talking to typographers and type designers, he explains, “I went into it assuming they are designing fonts for me. But in reality, they design fonts for graphic designers, type directors, and art directors in professional contexts, who then put them to use for people like me. That disconnect between what design professionals think and take for granted and what regular people think and take for granted comes from two different poles but we meet in the middle at type.”

Fonts are vehicles for delivering information and in the case of logos, visual affinity, so the non-designer human doesn’t usually notice unless it causes friction in our lives. “We’re consuming type all the time, and reacting to it, but not necessarily thinking about it,” says Murphy. “Designers and professionals are thinking about and looking at type all the time, but not always from the standpoint of the consumer.”

I confess I didn’t notice Microsoft’s change until I copied some text into a Word document in Times New Roman, producing weirdly large and bossy 14-pt text that the formatting panel informed me was Aptos. After the momentary annoyance, I changed it back and was on my way.

As we easily navigate the web, read transit maps at our subway station, or find our preferred brands on the shelves of a busy big box store, type is an invisible yet powerful force in our lives. But when design causes friction, it becomes an issue. And we’re not shy about telling companies about it.

Keith Murphy is the co-editor of Designs and Anthropologies: Frictions and Affinities (University of New Mexico Press).

Photos courtesy of Keith Murphy.

1. Murphy, K.M. 2017. “Fontroversy! Or, How to Care About the Shape of Language,” in S. Shankar and J. Cavanaugh (eds.), Language and Materiality, pp. 63-86. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ↩︎

The post Helveticization, Comic CERNs, & Change: A Design Anthropologist on “Fontroversy” appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

The post DesignThinkers Podcast: Aaron Draplin appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Amidst the typography industry’s corporate consolidations, Positype proudly asserts that it remains one of the largest independently controlled font collections.

Customers, agencies, and creatives are looking for independent foundries to offer more. This new site is a blend of modern functionality with subtle nods to successful approaches from our past.

Neil Summerour

Positype celebrates “subtleties of mass, perfect imperfections, warmth, and uniqueness,” making the website a pleasure to peruse.

We had some fun exploring the newest typefaces in the Positype family, from the techno-futuristic Ginza Pro Wide (above) to the award-winning Clear Sans Pro. The accessible and multilingual typeface was influenced by early 20th-century signage in five new writing scripts (we love its Korean expression, shown below in Extra Bold).

Envy (above) is, well, fun—and that’s the official word on the site, folks. Smiles is a whimsical and retro-fabulous release, influenced by wood type designs and hovering at the edge of legibility (below).

You’ll also find workhorse typefaces like Overture (below). The Bodoni-inspired typeface, 24 years in the making, was aptly named as a nod to the Debussy Summerour listened to on loop while designing it.

We’re partial to Overture’s fantastic ornaments and swashes.

Halogen Pro is a softer, refined take on its iconic predecessor, with expanded script support in Greek and Cyrillic.

Read more about the relaunched website and the new typefaces on Positype’s blog.

The post Positype Declares Independence with a Refreshed Website & New Typefaces appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The type designer, lettering artist, and graphic designer is known for bold forms and designs infused with his sense of humor, and Skew makes itself comfortable in this oeuvre.

We love a good origin story!

In 2018, Caneso designed event branding for the TypeCon conference theme, “Nice,” which featured an “energetic” brush logotype and an early version of Campaign Slab. He also created conference merch as part of the branding packaging, giving him the opportunity to play around with the theme letterforms (below).

His “No Space for Hate” poster is another example of Caneso’s experimentation with looser brush expressions.

However, the inspiration for Skew didn’t fully coalesce until 2022, when Caneso was working on a guide to help designers “push the ideas of emphasis, embellishment, and exaggeration” in letter designs. As part of the guide, Caneso wanted to showcase the letter ductus (the combined speed, angle, and pressure) responsible for the specific design (below). This exploration turned into the early designs for Skew.

Unlike many brush lettering predecessors, Skew’s variability gives you room to maneuver in complex typographic projects. Rather than leaning into the one-solid-movement of brush letterforms, Caneso describes Skew as a brush-like display font that “doesn’t shy away from the individual strokes that construct the forms.”

You can see how the shapes come together to form letterforms, imbuing the font with plenty of handmade distinction, like the exaggerated pinching between strokes.

Caneso has also recently released a vector bundle with 250 fun illustrations and icons that complement Skew’s unique personality or add a little life to projects featuring other fonts.

Skew is available in six weights from Light to Super, and an additional Rough version is available in those same weights. The wide array of available alternates and ligatures will make any designer feel like a lettering artist.

Caneso, the founder of design studio pprwrk and type foundry PSTL, has been featured in PRINT over the years, most recently in our Type Tuesday column for Panel. Check out the designer’s other summer 2024 releases: Hegante Display and Snug Sharp.

The post Skew is a Brush Lettering Font Built for Designers appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Type of Feeling is an expansion in Jessica Walsh and her team’s mission to provide custom typography services “that move past pure function and speak to the soul of a brand on a deeper and more meaningful level.” The team deployed years of experience in brand identity and strategy to craft a collection of fonts designed to evoke particular moods and sentiments: joy (Jubel), cozy (Conforto), longing (Onsra), and tranquility (Serein), to name a few.

It’s no surprise that the award-winning creative director, the force behind Let’s Talk About Mental Health, a platform and safe space for dialog around well-being, and the founder of Ladies, Wine, and Design, a global initiative to champion creative women, has something deeper and more profound to say about typography.

“At &Walsh, we believe unique typography can be one of a brand’s most distinctive assets. When working with brands on custom type projects, we always set out to create typography that is not only distinctive but also full of emotion and feeling.” Jessica Walsh says. “For brands and designers that can’t afford custom typography, we wanted to create a retail collection on Type of Feeling built on these same principles of distinction and emotion.”

So, why a foundry? Especially considering that typography is essential to the branding and identity work the team already does for clients. The team didn’t set out with this objective in mind; it actually started as an experiment. “When we kicked off this project, we started by creating the fonts we, as a creative team, really wanted to see in the world. Fonts that make beautifully distinct headlines and create an emotional connection with the reader,” said Lauren Walsh, strategy for &Walsh. “It wasn’t until we had two fonts we were obsessed with that we started thinking about the foundry as a business.”

The foundry specializes in unique, timeless display typography for brands, whether the typeface is a bespoke project or one of the retail fonts available exclusively on the Type of Feeling website.

“Type of Feeling specializes in display typography that can be unique and distinct for a brand in a timeless way. Our typefaces are niche, so you won’t see them used everywhere, meaning they can retain some ownability for brands,” explained Jessica Walsh. The available alternate sets, weights, and glyphs amplify the retail fonts’ unique personalities.

As a fun aside, I asked Jessica Walsh if she had a favorite word in another language—conveying a sentiment we don’t have a word for in English. “In another language, I really like “sisu” which is about sticking to your guns when things get tough. Wabi Sabi is such a great one, too (accepting impermanence and imperfection),” said Walsh.

“Within our collection, each name is meant to evoke a very specific, hard-to-describe feeling,” Walsh continued. “Ssonder is my favorite because every detail of the font was designed to capture the delicacy of the feeling. It was crafted with beautiful ligature stylistic sets that reflect this concept of a web & the connections formed from experiences and memories. Ssonder is a beautiful example of what we set out to accomplish: creating a world for this feeling to exist in and for brands to see themselves in that world.”

Ssonder is drawn from the feeling and realization that each person you see, each person you pass, and each person that exists has their own complex & distinct life, like a gossamer web of experiences & memories. I’ve had this feeling before but never knew how to describe it.

Jesssica Walsh

My favorite sentiment is the German word “fernweh,” which is a longing for faraway places, perhaps homesickness for places you’ve never been. I’d love to see what the Type of Feeling team would create for it!

So, what was the team’s favorite part of creating Type of Feeling? “I was amazed by all the possibilities that come with launching a font. It’s not just about the typeface itself, but everything that surrounds it—like usage examples, the specimen, and the art direction of its presentation,” said art director Lucas Luz. Type designer Sanchit Sawaria noted that his biggest surprise was “discovering hidden type design talent amongst people you work with every day.”

No emotion has been ruled out; we think each poses a unique perspective on a future typeface. Even negative emotions are part of our humanity and should be felt and, therefore, reflected in our collection. The more complex the emotion, the better!

Jessica Walsh

As for what we’ll see next out of Type of Feeling, Walsh said, “We love the idea of taking this opportunity to learn about different emotions and feelings in different languages.”

Jessica Walsh explained that in the five years of creating Type of Feeling, the team created many fonts outside this release (and scrapped many more, too). “It was important to us to not just put more typefaces out into the world but to create ones we felt were very effective in evoking emotion and could allow for true distinctiveness when utilized by designers.”

“We also wanted to take the time to learn from designers about their pain points with discovering fonts, testing them and licensing them so that we could build those learnings into Type of Feeling. Our goal is to continue to make distinct yet timeless typefaces that are filled with emotion.” Walsh continued. “We also would love to collaborate with our peers in the industry to see what their take is on our foundry’s mission to create type based on feelings: our doors are always open!”

Peruse the website at typeoffeeling.com or get in touch with Jessica Walsh and the team to collaborate at info@typeoffeeling.com.

The post Type of Feeling: Jessica Walsh’s New Foundry Gets Emotional appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Politip came out of the designer’s experiments with proportion, variations that relate metaphorically to the three dimensions of space. Working with six grids, Bodhuin played with height, weight, and width. The resulting typeface is simple and geometric but also buoyant and versatile.

Switching between the grids reveals new relationships between the letters—they rise and fall, whisper and shout. Politip’s many sides offer the designer a playground for translating into different moods and contexts. The typeface has 210 fonts (seven weights, five widths, and six heights along three axes), and a handful of Opentype features.

Bodhuin is a graphic designer, type designer, and educator living in France. His graphic design studio, bb-bureau, specializes in typography across a variety of projects from visual identities and web design to signage and editorial. Find out more and try out Politip at bb-bureau.fr and on Instagram.

The post Politip is Very Poly appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Letterform Archive is offering a reprinting of W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennett with a Kickstarter campaign and a special $60 pricetag until September 10.

This is a book to spend a year with.
—Steven Heller

Letterform Archive kickstarted the first printing of Bruce Kennett’s comprehensive biography of Dwiggins. It was funded in two days and quickly sold out. This beautiful book is not just a biography; the pages are typeset in a custom digital version of Dwiggins’ Electra typeface, with 1200-plus images and Dwiggins’ essays set in his typefaces.

“The name W. A. Dwiggins usually brings to mind typefaces for Linotype and books for Knopf, but his amazing career has myriad additional facets. Over a period of fifteen years, I researched, wrote, photographed, and designed this book to honor his creative forces, exploring material from the Boston Public Library, Letterform Archive, my own private collection, and other archival sources,” says Kennett, the book’s author. “The book serves as inspiration for anyone in the visual arts — whether it be graphic design, illustration, textile design, printmaking, calligraphy, type design, or puppetry.”

The book will remain available on Kickstarter and at museum shops after this date. However, the early campaign premiums are worth a look.

Running through his life is a joie de vivre and lightness of spirit than can serve as inspiration for all of us.
—Bruce Kennett, author

Learn more about W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design and become a backer on the book’s Kickstarter page.

The post Call Yourself a Graphic Designer? You Have W.A. Dwiggins to Thank appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Now, let’s meet the team!

Emily Oberman – Pentagram Partner and designer

Ash Phillips – Co-founder, Creative Director, and CEO of the Montreal-based strategic brand consultancy Six Cinquième

Todd Radom – Graphic designer and sports design expert

Alex Center – Designer and founder of the design and branding studio CENTER

Terrance Weinzierl – Creative Type Director at Monotype Studio

Overall, our design experts were fans of the Paris 2024 branding system. The logo continues to be the most contentious aspect of the package, with the typography also receiving varied reactions from the panel. Ash Phillips was actually at the Games and spoke about how the branding played out in the physical spaces throughout Paris.

The modern geometric shapes created an interesting contrast with the city’s architecture which is frozen in time. The past and future were colliding.
—Ash Phillips

“While I was visiting Paris in July, shortly before the Olympics began, I got to see some of the early setup and outdoor implementations of the branding. My initial response was that the modern geometric shapes created an interesting contrast with the city’s architecture which is frozen in time. The past and future were colliding,” Phillips shared. “As I looked deeper into the branding, that’s exactly what they intended. They pulled from the past, taking inspiration from art styles like Art Deco and the city’s iconic architecture, and attempted to bring French culture into the future. Interestingly, this dichotomy between past and future is prevalent today in French culture, as I overheard the concerns of the French regarding the potential rise of far-right politicians like Marine Le Pen as I was people-watching. It was a close call. But looking back at my time there and seeing the branding now, I can see this struggle between modern/progressive and traditionalist France reflected in the visuals.”

Monotype’s Terrance Weinzierl reflected on what makes Olympics branding an exercise unlike any other. “What’s unique about branding the Olympics is that it represents a specific time and place and doesn’t need to perform beyond that. It’s short-lived,” he said. “I’m reminded of the ’68 Mexico Olympics; it fits perfectly for that time and place and now represents a bookmark in time, like a tattoo. Most brands are intended to live and grow for many years, so they have the advantage of iterations, edits, and improvements over time. The Olympic branding is expected to be perfect right away, with the added pressure of being globally palatable. It’s a very difficult scenario for any designer involved.”

Alex Center also referenced the ’68 Mexico Olympics branding, heralding it as a beacon that all others have failed to reach. “Every Olympics branding will forever pale in comparison to the 1968 Mexico identity by Lance Wyman. Every other Olympics branding is just competing for silver,” he said.

About the overall Paris 2024 brand, Todd Radom made his thoughts clear: “I love it,” he told me. “Paris itself is, of course, the star, and few cities can compete in terms of the overall vibe and cultural experience, even from afar.”

Every Olympics branding will forever pale in comparison to the 1968 Mexico identity by Lance Wyman. Every other Olympics branding is just competing for silver.
—Alex Center

Logo

From the moment the Paris 2024 branding was unveiled, the logo was the talk of the town. It’s been a controversial design, to say the least, and one I’ve already taken down in some of my previous Paris 2024 design coverage. But a few of our panelists defended its honor, particularly Radom. “Can I give it a platinum medal?” he gushed. “It’s simple, stylish, versatile, easy on the eye, and oh-so French. 11/10.” Center is also a fan. “Sure, I can’t stop seeing Mary J. Blige ever since it was brought to my attention that it looks like her, but is that such a bad thing?” he said. “Who wants more drama in their life? Not me.”

The logo is somehow too cute and too small to represent the event, location, and feeling of the Olympics and Paralympics. I appreciate the idea of using a woman (Marianne) to represent the games, but perhaps not a woman reduced to lips and hair.
—Emily Oberman

Pentagram’s Oberman adamantly represented the other end of the logo spectrum. “The actual logo is a head-scratcher, almost literally. I would say it’s the weakest aspect of the entire branding suite,” she said. “With any design project, of course, there are committees and clients, and for this one, I know there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen, so I do not want to disparage the work of Sylvain Boyer or the design team. Also, I know previous Olympic logos have not been without their controversies, and this does not reach that level in any way, shape, or form. However, the logo is somehow too cute and too small to represent the event, location, and feeling of the Olympics and Paralympics. I appreciate the idea of using a woman (Marianne) to represent the games, but perhaps not a woman reduced to lips and hair. I keep wanting to say, ‘She’s hot.’ Overall, it just seems too trite. The woman it uses to represent the games is nothing more than a decorative style reference. (Not to mention the similarity to the Tinder logo!) Especially when the women of the Olympics really brought it this year, from Simone Biles to Imani Khalif to Sifan Hassan to Gabby Thomas, they have been powerful examples of female Olympic athletes.”

Phillips was on the same side of the logo debate as Oberman. “Overall, it feels dated, the icon is awkward, and it doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the design system,” she explained. “The choice to use Marianne feels like they tried to force this old symbol into the branding rather than thinking about what France represents today or in the future. What message is that sending? To me, it shows a mindset that is stuck in the past rather than forward thinking. It feels like France is undecided on its values and what it wants to represent culturally moving forward.”

Pictograms

The Olympic pictograms are an iconic design element of each Games (pun intended), and the designs created for Paris 2024 pushed the boundaries of what the form can be. These symbols, described as “coats of arms” instead of pictograms, bucked tradition in ways our design experts (mostly) commended.

“For the most part, the pictograms were very pretty and interesting; however, many are confusing and indecipherable,” said Oberman. “I might have a hard time using them for wayfinding, but they look very cool on a court or field. I like the playing card/symmetrical aspect and the attempt to do something different from what has become the standard use of a representation of a human in all of them. Some are more successful than others (skateboarding looks a little like band-aids, but I love rhythmic gymnastics!), but I appreciated the effort and overall cohesive concept.”

“I think they’re pretty well done,” added Center. “I like how they stack together to form patterns. I haven’t seen that approach used a ton outside of Basketball, but it looks really great on the court.”

Typography

Much like the logo, the typography developed for Paris 2024 proved to be a polarizing topic for our panel. Center deemed it the weakest part of the entire system. “It’s far too fussy for my liking,” he said. “There are too many funky letters and, overall, it feels too whimsical for the Olympics. I also noticed it doesn’t fit on bibs when athletes have longer names. I love squished type, but not at the Olympics.”

Meanwhile, Weinzierl wholeheartedly approved of the typeface and dubbed it the strongest element in the system. “The custom typeface is expressive and plays on notes of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, both synonymous with Paris,” he explained. “The balance of utility and aesthetics is what type design is all about, and the best typefaces achieve both. Like a good shoe, it is useful and beautiful. The Paris 2024 typeface has a good balance, which helps it perform well for the massive number of applications.”

I enjoy the alternate glyphs designed for the typeface that give it visual variety and flexibility in tone. The rounded-top capital A is a satisfying connection to the arch motif they used in images and layouts.
—Terrance Weinzierl

Weinzierel elaborated on the success of the typeface, saying, “I enjoy the alternate glyphs designed for the typeface that give it visual variety and flexibility in tone. The rounded-top capital A is a satisfying connection to the arch motif they used in images and layouts.” However, he identified areas for improvement, specifically in terms of optical sizing. “Optical sizing adapts the drawings and spacing to be better suited for certain sizes or viewing distances,” he said. “I imagine a version of the typeface that would mellow out and be easier to read when very small. That’s always a challenge with expressive typefaces designed for display sizes— how do they perform when used small, and if they fall short, how can they adapt, or can you pair them with another typeface?”

Overall Favorite Design Moments

Outside of the brand system, Paris 2024 overflowed with feasts for the design senses. Center uplifted South Sudan’s all-black Opening Ceremony uniforms and the photo finish of Noah Lyles winning the 100m. “You see each runner at every stage of the race showing just how close it was. That’s an incredible visual,” he said.

Oberman also mentioned that fashion reached great heights during these Games. “I’ve been very focused on how modern and futuristic all the uniforms have gotten,” she said. “The sleek designs intended to help the athletes perform at their best are fascinating and beautiful. Also, Snoop’s hilarious Olympic rings glasses were kind of amazing.” Oberman went on to flag a few other favorites: “I like the medals, which I think have a reference to the Eiffel Tower without being cliche, and the torch is cool and modern, too. (Though it looks a little like a blunt, which seems appropriate for how prevalent Snoop was in all the coverage).” 

Meanwhile, Radom couldn’t help but mention the setting of Paris playing such a magnificent role in the Games’ overall design, shouting out the Eiffel Tower Stadium, in particular. “It puts this iconic landmark in the middle of every visual impression, a virtuoso achievement that speaks to ‘total design,’ beyond the graphics and the environmental visuals.” He also loved the Grand Palais and the purple track and field surface. “Also, can we propel memes to ‘design moments?'” he added. “I’d include the Turkish shooter Yusuf Dikeç.”

It put this iconic landmark [the Eiffel Tower] in the middle of every visual impression, a virtuoso achievement that speaks to ‘total design,’ beyond the graphics and the environmental visuals.
—Todd Radom

Looking Ahead to LA 2028

To help get us through the void left by Paris 2024’s conclusion, let’s discuss LA 2028! We have just four short years to prepare for the next bout of Olympic mania, and we’re already getting some glimpses at designs for those Games.

Reports are that LA2028 is getting a dynamic, moving logo that features an A that continuously changes and morphs to reflect the diversity and creative spirit of the city. Each A has been designed by athletes and celebrities to show what LA means to them. The type within the broader LA2028 Olympics identity is in the hands of LA-based typographer Jeremy Mickel. This should please Center, who told me, “A designer local to the hosting city should do the branding for each Olympics. That only seems right.” He raises a solid point, and in a city like LA, that shouldn’t be a tall order.

The post Oui or Non? Design Experts on the Paris 2024 Olympics Branding appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

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Unlike the typical 20th-century typeface, often a series of compromises designed to work in a narrow context, describes the Typotheque website,* Zed was created to be inclusive, to “address situations where people are excluded from using certain technologies.” This exclusion can manifest in people with low vision, and it can happen in marginalized linguistic communities.

*Speaking of said website, Typotheque highlights Zed’s attributes against a background of gorgeous 3D renderings of extinct plants created by an artist, Andrea Phillipon, based on surviving drawings.

Zed features a series of adaptations between display and text for readability and accessibility. These include open counters for body text for deciphering at a glance; in the display version, closed counters emphasize letter similarity and flow. You’ll notice display-to-body text adaptations from the spacing to the extenders to the contrast. Not only is Zed adaptable for readers of all kinds, but it also has versatility for today’s designers. Play with three dimensions (weight, width, and skew) along any point on the axes—the family offers 558 defined fonts. This number doesn’t include the options that arise from the dimensions of rounding and optical size. The possibilities are impressive.

Rooted in research and science, the Typotheque team carried out lab tests in collaboration with the National Center for Ophthalmology in France to determine the right letter proportions for readers with low vision due to age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, peripheral vision loss, etc. The result is as accessible to these communities as it is to people with full vision.

The team also designed a Braille glyph set.

The design team’s research and collaboration with native speakers is another aspect of Zed’s accessibility. At first release, Zed supports 435 languages, with a particular focus on Indigenous North American and African languages that use the Roman alphabet. Of note is Zed’s support of the Wakashan and Salishan Indigenous languages of British Columbia. The team worked closely with Indigenous language keepers and drafted a proposal to permanently render these characters in The Unicode Standard (proposal accepted for inclusion in 16.0).

Typotheque isn’t finished with Zed, either. Further support is coming for 22 additional writing scripts, from Arabic to Thai (covering hundreds, if not thousands of additional languages). Interestingly, many world language scripts already use different letterform construction between large and small text. Here’s a sample of this exploration for two optical versions in Thai.

When words cannot bridge the language gap, the team’s next release will feature hundreds of symbols and pictograms in various weights and visual styles that work with the Zed font family. Zed Icons is due to drop this fall.

Explore more fascinating process and research content on Typotheque’s blog, and read about and test drive Zed.

Images and video courtesy of Typotheque.

The post Zed is a Typeface on a Mission for a Better World appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

South Side Sanctuary isn’t just any park. It symbolizes reinvestment in the historic Bronzeville neighborhood, a community with a deep thread of African-American business, arts, culture, and activism in the early 20th century. Louis Armstrong, Ida B. Wells, Quincy Jones, Nat King Cole, Mahalia Jackson, Richard Wright, and Bessie Coleman all called Bronzeville home. But like so many historically Black neighborhoods, Bronzeville intimately experienced the brunt of race-based economics and decades of disinvestment.

Awarded funding through the mayor’s Public Outdoor Plaza program (POP!), South Side Sanctuary emerged from a vacant lot at 47th and Martin Luther King Drive into an important retreat for the community, with space for “performance, pop-ups, and simple silence.” There is also infrastructure for sports and recreation—notably skateboarding, which I was surprised to find out is still illegal in much of Chicago.

As the park transforms a vacant lot within a historically disinvested community into a gathering space for all, the logotype embodies the idea of transformation.
— Nick Adam, Design Director at Span

The logotype features custom typography that echoes the linear architecture and the unique typography of the site, with a unique stencil form paying homage to the historic Bronzeville bench by Chicago artist Apache Wakefield.

“Our custom-drawn Sanctuary logotype conveys the uniqueness of this public park. As the park transforms a vacant lot within a historically disinvested community into a gathering space for all, the logotype embodies the idea of transformation,” said Nick Adam, Associate Partner and Design Director at Span. He goes on to explain some of the team’s inspiration and vision for the type. “The flexible design of the logo, which can be arranged vertically and horizontally, mirrors the park’s flexibility to host various activities, from community events to weddings to skateboarding. The bespoke, stencil, uppercase letterforms offer a feeling of utility or building, aligning with the park’s mission of community building. The unusual uppercase descenders highlight the park’s unique topography, specifically designed for skateboarders and BMX bike riders.”

I love the how the vibrant color palette leans into the urban architecture (pink and teal commercial grille doors, gray concrete), the idea of being in service to the community (reflective vest red), and a space to enjoy nature (purple and green). The typography and color system work together incredibly well across various contexts, from outdoor to print to digital to fundraising merch.

South Side Sanctuary officially opens today, August 6.

Learn more about the project and Span’s collaboration with the founders, Cecilia Cuff and Jasmine Anwuli, Future Firm architects, and partners such as Black Girls Shred, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing access for Black women in competitive sports and sports careers.

Imagery courtesy of Span Studio.

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Touli is a London-based creative director and graphic designer who also happened to be a PRINT New Visual Artist. She says she “thrives on designing multidisciplinary work that involves a variety of techniques, showcased across different platforms and mediums, always with a great attention to detail.”

Touli practices in digital and print design, typography and animation, and her client list reads like an honor roll: Adobe, Dell, HP, The New Yorker, Ciroc Vodka, Tate, Converse, Glo, Dropbox, LinkedIn—and so on. She’s presented at numerous events, including the OFFF Festival, Adobe MAX, Graphika Manila, FITC Amsterdam, the Toca Me Festival and the Typomania Festival. I believe she’s key to the future of design (wherever in the multi or meta world it is headed).

I knew I had to write about her work immediately, when on the very day that we corresponded, I ordered takeout and the delivery person brought this pizza box featuring her very unusual typography. It was a sign! The following discussion about some of her major projects is the result …

Shifting Symphonies

You’ve used typography to explore themes of transition. What inspired your series Shifting Symphonies?
The kinetic typography series dives into the essence of change and transformation. From the balance of “Yin Yang” to the explosive power of the “Big Bang,” the progress of “Come and Go,” the ups and downs in “Up/Down We Go,” and the all-encompassing “Here, There, Everywhere”—each piece emphasizes the pivotal role of transition in our lives. The world today faces major challenges like digital transformation and the pursuit of climate, energy and environmental sustainability. Transition highlights the need to embrace change, strive for balance and accelerate digital transformation for society’s collective benefit. Visualizing this universal process in impactful ways underscores its importance.

What outcome were you seeking for yourself?
This project was about gaining a deeper understanding and expression of transition, pushing creative boundaries, and conveying the importance of change in our lives. The goal was to inspire reflection and encourage viewers to embrace transitions in their own lives with a positive outlook.

Love Me Not

As a child, you played the “Love me, love me not” game and believed it could come true. Tell us about this project.
“Love Me, Love Me Not” represents the endless cycle of falling in and out of love with ourselves, others and the world. Inspired by the French game of picking flower petals, this artwork creates an infinite loop of possibilities, intertwining fate and luck. The loop’s shape, reminiscent of infinity symbols, forms two reflecting hearts symbolizing endless love. It’s a nostalgic nod to childhood innocence, allowing for a moment of dreaming and wandering.

This is another typographic/kinetic experience made for yourself, not a client. What outcome did you desire?
Although the original draft was for a client who chose a different proposal, the idea felt compelling enough to pursue personally. The goal was to explore the theme of love in a creative way and share a piece that resonates emotionally. The aim was to create a mesmerizing loop that lets people take a break, get lost in it, and reflect on their own love journeys.

Do you believe in luck and chance?
Absolutely! Luck plays an intriguing role alongside hard work and decision-making in shaping our experiences and outcomes. It adds unpredictability and excitement, influencing—but not necessarily defining—the paths we take and the connections we make.

Fuck This Shit

Fuck This Shit seems to be exactly as it sounds. Why?
Fuck This Shit captures those moments of sheer frustration when you want to shout it from the rooftops. This phrase, with its emphatic tone, can either release tension or draw attention, making it a versatile expression of exasperation. It embodies the raw emotion of wanting to let go. (Inspired by Simenone.)

How did you tame the type to convey your message? Or is it all random?
There are countless ways to convey the same words—whether playful, nostalgic, straightforward or whimsical. Different textured typography was created to reflect various interpretations of the same message. The blend of whimsical design with varied backgrounds transforms the message, sometimes offering a lighter tone, other times a more sarcastic one. Ultimately, it’s open to the viewer’s mood and thoughts at the moment to define the exact interpretation of the message.

Did you teach yourself these typographic tricks?
Creating custom typography in the 2D space has been a passion for a while, but the goal was to push those skills further. This piece started as a simple exercise to bring 2D typography skills into the 3D world. It was never intended to be a finished project but rather an exploration and experimentation driven by a love for learning new techniques and challenging oneself.

What do you think the role of kinetic typography is, and what is your role in it?
Kinetic typography brings words to life through motion, adding a dynamic dimension to textual communication. It enhances the emotional and conceptual impact of the message. The role here is to push the boundaries of how typography can convey complex ideas and emotions, engaging viewers in a visually and intellectually stimulating experience.

The post The Daily Heller: Tina Touli’s Explosively Twirling Typography appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Telop is an early media term—the Japanese word for “television program logo” or “title graphics.” Telop is also an optical machine produced by Gray [not Grey] Industries, used to display various text information on the screen during a TV program, such as the title, subtitles, captions or credits.

Recently, I was introduced to the Eyes of a Generation Facebook page (seen above), and down the rabbit hole I went. In 2014, the full Eyes of a Generation website published vintage (circa 1955) Telop cards from the Gady Reinhold Collection. Reinhold, an associate director at CBS, lived through many technology changes—from static cards to flying logos—and has been responsible for making sure all the visual assets are broadcast on time.

I recently spoke to Gady about his 52 years at CBS (he took a buyout in 2017), which when he arrived had one machine remaining. “It was a light box projection”, he explained. “A light source, mirror and lens. Similar to an overhead projector.” The 5″ x 7″ title cards fit into a metal tray with six openings for different cards reflected [one at a time] on a mirror that was captured by a TV camera lens, which allowed for dissolves.

All the work was done in a “telecine room”, where an army of craftsmen converted movie content to TV and video. Gady says something was always happening in real time — commercials, show titles, credits — all the components were synced and broadcast to millions of viewers.

Some of the cards were designed in hours, others, say for the news shows, in much less time. Here are some of the 130 telop cards fron CBS and NBC in New York, gifted to (Facebook member) Leslie E. Barras and posted on Eyes of a Generation.

The post The Daily Heller: For Those Born After Flatscreens Made Tube TVs Obsolete … appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“It’s taught me much about myself over the years, even though I cringe at so much of what I’ve written. It helped me realise that consistently showing up without expectations often leads to more inspiration than relying on random bursts of motivation” – OMGLORD‘s Gabby Lord on the changes and challenges she’s seen over a decade of design.

Absolutely astonishing shot by Peter Iain Campbell of the Ninian Northern oil platform being decommissioned in Lerwickby Harbour, Shetland. Looks like Howl’s Moving Castle regurgitated by shonky AI, but it’s real.

See also: Jonathan Hoefler’s Life Imitates AI Art.

Anthony Burrill uses typography to visualise the work of rock’s greatest drummers, joining forces with five music legends in a unique collaboration to raise funds for Teenage Cancer Trust.

Tim Andraka’s art will break how you see the world.

MS Paint in browser is all very well, but call me when you’ve recreated Deluxe Paint IV (via relentless blog overlord J-Kott).

Slate’s spot-on review of Deadpool and Wolverine, a film I begrudgingly went to see (because I don’t like to miss an issue) but was genuinely surprised by. Soooooo much better than the first two. It’s The Madagascar 3 of Deadpool films. I just wish they hadn’t spaffed quite so much of the casting in the marketing. People were going to show up, you didn’t need to reveal that BLANK and BLANK and BLANK were involved.

In memory of Sir Kenneth Grange, 1929-2024.

That is all.

This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.

Header photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash.

The post Meanwhile No. 209 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The name Pangea evokes visions of a singular global landmass, so it’s no surprise that Koeberlin and the Fontwerk team collaborated across the globe to embed broad language support into the family. European Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, and Vietnamese are included as standard (Pangea Condensed is, for now, available in this standard subset). Pangea Afrikan was the first language extension, which supports all Latin-based African languages and some Indigenous North American languages. Arabic and Hebrew followed, working with Azza Alameddine, a Lebanese type designer living in Spain, and Israeli designers Yanek Iontef and Daniel Grumer. The Fontwerk team is continually working to add support for additional languages.

With the addition of narrower widths, Pangea is now an even more powerful and versatile dynamo for designers working on packaging, branding, editorial, and digital projects.

What’s better? Koeberlin’s commitment to donate 25% of his earnings to preserving the rainforest and to implementing large-scale reforestation projects with organizations such as Trees for the Future, The Green Belt Movement, and Fairventures Worldwide.

The post Pangea’s Broad Appeal Narrows appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

What’s interesting about Nave is that it took an incredible 11 years to design. Clarke began his career in digital, working in web design for two decades before his discontent pulled him towards his love of letters and hands-on craft. To kick off his change of career, Clarke enrolled in a summer type design intensive at Reading University, an experience he calls transformative. It was here that Clarke first started tugging on Nave’s threads.

Clarke says his initial inspiration for Nave came from a mark-making exercise with a pointed brush. “I was captivated by the fast, flicked outstrokes the tool could create and wondered if I could combine these fluid strokes with a more formal, upright structure. I imagined the combination would make the shapes both dynamic and approachable.”

But the final design eluded him. In his earliest sketches, Clarke leaned into the Roman upright shapes and away from cursive and handwritten styles. While Clarke realized a few letters according to his vision, he felt the shapes needed more flexibility to replicate across a cohesive typeface. After several failed attempts to unlock it, he put the designs in a drawer and created a different debut typeface. Clarke admits now, “The style I aimed for was elusive and well beyond my skill level at the time.”

Though Clarke set Nave aside, he never forgot it. “Each time I released a new type family, I would pick up Nave and have another go. I reached out to other type designers to ask for guidance but still couldn’t manipulate the character set to fit together in harmony while matching my vision.”

Seven type releases later, in 2022, Clarke started the design for Nave again, this time from scratch, working from his memory of the letterforms. He started seeing life in the results but still struggled with the uppercase. One day, while flicking through some specimen books, he found a sample of Futura Black. “Although this typeface had little in common with Nave’s final design, it revealed an approach I could use for Nave’s capitals,” Clarke says. “Paul Renner appeared to have created Futura Black from blocks, carving into them to reveal a stencil-like letterform. This focus on the negative shapes unlocked the design of the capitals and allowed me to complete Nave, aligning it with my original vision.”

Nave is finally the design it was always meant to be, and I hope that, through its purity, it will find longevity in the hands of designers.

If you’re a type designer stuck on a treadmill with a project that just won’t let you go, Jamie has some advice on what NOT to do:

• Start with a subtle and tricky concept.
• Skip writing a brief entirely.
• Ask for help, but don’t articulate your goals.
• Second-guess yourself at every turn.
• Keep pushing forward with a design you despise.
• Constantly distract yourself by working on other fonts.

It’s sage advice for any creative endeavor. Clarke insists that Nave couldn’t have happened without all the twists and turns, even if there might have been a more efficient process. But he concedes, “The lessons learned from my missteps were invaluable.”

Nave is a versatile family which includes 14 styles, 227 languages, and 600+ characters. Explore the family and learn more about Jamie Clarke Type.

All imagery © Jamie Clarke Type except where otherwise noted.

The post Nave Breathes Life into the Familiar After More Than a Decade in the Drawer appeared first on PRINT Magazine.