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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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. ↩︎

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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.

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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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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.

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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.

Lucas Sharp and Chantra Melee came together as personal partners in design school. Malee branched off into branding while Sharp found his footing in type design. Soon, they became professional partners, forming Sharp Type in 2015. Early clients were the Hillary Clinton campaign and Samsung. Their flagship ‘Season One’ typeface, Sharp Sans, emerged from the team’s work with Samsung.

As with any design business, the churn of clients and work can make it challenging to stand back and look at your own brand. “It was important to have a beautiful product from the beginning. The way we presented ourselves would make or break our relevancy,” says Malee. “When we came out with the initial website, it was groundbreaking in its own way. But by four years in, we knew we needed to start updating it.” Sharp Type had been leapfrogged by their foundry peers’ new websites. Even so, the team took their time envisioning the new site in-house over four years, which launched this May.

Justin Sloane, the foundry’s lead systems designer and typeface designer, whom Malee and Sharp also met in design school, led the website redesign. On bringing the website project in-house, Sharp says, “We didn’t go the agency route. Our preferred mode of collaboration involves absorbing vs. interfacing. And we were finally at a point where we could afford to hire Sloane. So we gave him the time and space to explore.” Here’s a fantastic profile of Sloane’s process and the iterations of the new website.

So, why ‘Season One’ and ‘Season Two?’ Sharp describes how different the current industry is from when they started. Malee and Sharp anticipate a breaking point in the industry, especially in the age of AI, where it will be hard to rise above the noise. “It used to be that designers’ styles got turned into conventions,” Sharp explained, “but citing source material and that chain of custody is no longer relevant. The model we’re moving to is more akin to fashion versus fine art. We were really into this idea of starting a whole new library. We wanted to pursue new stuff all the time. So we decided to de-emphasize the old library and develop a whole new suite of fonts.”

Before it was about timelessness. Now, it’s about timefulness, and doing stuff that’s really relevant in this moment.

Lucas Sharp

“Our new strategy aligns with some of the industry changes, but it’s also acting as a motivator. We’re excited about the creation around the corner. Having this as a new paradigm for the team creates this new dynamism and energy,” says Malee.

Sharp Earth

Sharp Earth, a multi-script san serif typeface family, was developed simultaneously and launched with the new website in May. This new multi-script sans serif typeface was spearheaded by Lucas Sharp and drawn in collaboration with a team of local experts from around the globe. Sharp started sketching Sharp Earth on a trackpad in Thailand. “Globalization is like toothpaste—we can’t put it back in the tube. It’s not going away. Western culture drove the first wave of globalization and has been absorbed, remixed, and adapted. The artifacts from globalization end up being greater than the sum of its parts.” Sharp explains. “The way that adaptation comes through in typography is very cool.”

Sharp was inspired to create a post-modern typeface in how it interacts with other language scripts. “Everything has already been done in this modernist paradigm, responding to that first wave of the modernist aesthetic. It’s interesting to see the character of cultures in the type specimens.” Sharp said. “In Thailand, for example, to fit into the modernist box, type had to contort itself, which removed the script’s very particular loop style. I wanted to create a typeface about that beautiful interaction, one step removed, where the foundation isn’t the Latin paradigm but the adaption and remixing.”

The whole process of building Sharp Earth for a global design culture had to be collaborative. Malee explained, “We always work with native designers in those language scripts. But there are moments where we can innovate in these collaborations. Bringing our outsider perspective and using our creative expression through this new form, there are moments where we can innovate in these collaborations. Some of these ideas really worked! (Many did not). Those incremental moves give typefaces something new.” Sharp adds, “You can understand the platonic ideal of the alphabet and writing system, but you still need to work with native designers and have them be the filter for your crazy ideas.”

But for all it is, Sharp Earth is not a typeface that throws out the rule book. At its core, it is a san serif workhorse. The team wanted to create something eminently useful. Trendy moments add some tension, like what Sharp calls the “overbite vibe.” But the story here is about Sharp Earth’s utility across language scripts. “We worked with each collaborator, not just ‘how do we replicate that move in your script,’ but what is its semiotic meaning? What does that feel like to a Western audience, and how can we deliver that feeling to the audience of the language script it’s drawn for?” Sharp explains. It’s not always one-to-one. Form is an international language, but the bending of conventions works differently in different languages and cultures. Building Sharp Earth was a cool learning experience.”

Sharp Earth doesn’t really fit into the genre signifiers. It’s not exactly geometric, or grotesque. It’s really a mash-up of globalization.

Lucas Sharp

This case study goes into the creation of Sharp Earth and includes some of the team’s near-term plans for the font family, including Chinese and Hangul scripts.

DOSS Collection

In keeping with its release schedule, Sharp Type released another fun new superfamily in June. DOSS is a techno-futurist collection, drawing inspiration from rave and underground culture. Designed by Marc Rouault, DOSS is designed as a series on a theme “like House Industries, or Emigre for Gen X,” says Sharp. The collection encompasses four styles: Exaflop, Acid, Plexus, and Problem. Read more about the process behind the DOSS Collection.

Malee and Sharp describe the new website as a beautiful display case, and they are excited to fill it. And, I agree, the website is gorgeous. “We want to be like a boutique clothing store: there are a few things on display and we want to draw your eye to those things.”

You can follow along with Sharp Type’s ambitious year of new releases on Instagram or at sharptype.co.

The post Sharp Type Season Two: A Gorgeous Website, Global Outlook, and New Suite of Typefaces appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

FiftyFifty put out a global call for typographic artworks of one word in their language that encapsulated the theme of “Positive Synonyms.” An incredible 1,500 student submissions from 34 universities in 32 countries (in 20 languages) were juried by nine industry judges who selected 150. The resulting collection of hand-drawn and digital calligraphy, typography, and lettering designs is now a traveling exhibition featuring 50x50cm black-and-white posters.

Left: قمة or”Qima” (Arabic, meaning “Top”) by Zena Khanfar, Palestinian, University of Sharjah;
Right: કુટુંબ or “Kutumb” (Gujarati, meaning “Family”) by Krishna Tandel, Indian, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies

Humanity, love, care, understanding, and tolerance are not just desirable but essential qualities in our challenging times. Words are powerful.

Nada Abdallah, University of Sharjah’s College of Fine Arts and Design

The University of Sharjah supports the traveling exhibition, which is endorsed by the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI). Founded in 1957, ATypI is a worldwide organization dedicated to type and typography design. Its annual conference has been a recurrent event since its founding. FiftyFifty was part of ATypl’s 2024 annual gathering in Brisbane, Australia.

Left top: 진솔하다 or “Jinsolhada” (Korean, meaning “Outspoken”) by Jiyeon Park, Hongik University; left middle: 温和 or “wēnhé” (Chinese, meaning “Gentle”) by Ding Yifu, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication; left bottom: 和平 or”hépíng” (Chinese, meaning “Peace”) by Yanrong Zhu, Tongji University; Right: πολύ or “polý” (Greek, meaning “Very”) by Candela Amestoy, Universidad Nacional de Lanús

Maha Abdullah, a senior international typography manager at Adobe, said she was impressed by the exhibition’s “brilliant approach to transforming how we look at typography…in the digital world.”

Cвабода or “svabOda” (Belarusian, meaning “Freedom”) by Lizaveta Kasinskaya, Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology

FiftyFifty will be at the Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture in Kefalonia, Greece, on July 27 and will open at the College of Fine Arts and Design at the University of Sharjah in September. You can see all the selected works on FiftyFifty’s Instagram feed or in this fantastic animation of the winning entries.

The global showcase will continue under a new theme in 2025, soon to be announced.

The post FiftyFifty Spotlights Typography’s Power to Unite Us appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I was sad to learn that Village Cigars closed after more than 100 years in business, but its bright red sign with its charming, handmade letters will live on. Village Preservation, a nonprofit working to preserve the architectural heritage and cultural history of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo, has just released a Greenwich Village Building Set. Comprised of 449 genuine LEGO bricks, the set features architecturally and culturally significant places in Greenwich Village, artfully rendered — from Village Cigars and the Stonewall Inn to Jefferson Market Library and the quaint streets surrounding Washington Square Park.

The Village is a center for LGBTQ culture, advocacy, and history, and it overflows with singular character and spirit. Christopher J. Devine, founder of Peacham, a creative agency committed to making history fun, worked with Vocal Type’s Tré Seals to artfully render this storied neighborhood in miniature, right down to its two most iconic signs: Village Cigars and the Stonewall Inn.

Signage plays an important role in creating a sense of place. A neighborhood’s character is shaped not only by its people, architecture, and street layout but also by its visual culture more broadly.

Christopher J. Devine

Village Cigars is less a type specimen than a hodge-podge of quirky letters. The letters of the store’s no fewer than four different signs vary in height, width, weight, and axis — sometimes within a single word. “When designing the Greenwich Village Building Set, it quickly occurred to me that an off-the-shelf retail font could never appropriately express the unique idiosyncrasies of the Village Cigars letterforms,” said Devine. So he enlisted Seals to recreate the letting of the horizontal sign on the store’s facade, the one that I’d used so often to get to where I was headed.

Devine said of the completed lettering, “[Tré’s work] beautifully reproduces the nuances of the original—including the irregular letter spacing, which I imagine goes against the instincts of every skilled type designer.”

Village Cigars went out of business during the design process. The building enjoys some protections as part of the Greenwich Village Historic District. But, interestingly, as Devine explained, “signage is generally regarded as ephemeral — especially when it advertises a business that no longer exists.”

Though 51-53 Christopher Street is architecturally unremarkable (built as horse stables in the mid-19th century), the ground floor became The Stonewall Inn in the 1930s (a cocktail lounge and restaurant). “Although the Stonewall sign was removed in 1989, it was an important part of the streetscape for many decades,” explains Executive Director of Village Preservation Andrew Berman.

Devine chose Vocal Type’s Marsha typeface for the miniature sign, designed by Seals in 2020. When creating Marsha, Seals found inspiration in The Stonewall Inn’s original sign and named the typeface after legendary LGBTQ+ activist and Stonewall Uprising veteran Marsha P. Johnson.

Like Tré’s Village Cigars lettering, Marsha also reflects the irreverence of the original Stonewall sign, including the backward W, which is one of the font’s contextual alternates.

Christopher J. Devine

The limited edition set will go on sale on Thursday, June 20. The proceeds will benefit Village Preservation’s work and mission, serving to document, celebrate, and preserve the special architecture and cultural heritage of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo.

The post Preserving Greenwich Village Signage History in Miniature appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

At the heart of Krata’s creative restrictions is a Python program developed by Forte, that applies patterns of horizontal or vertical lines to characters using a grid frame. Inspired by Karl Gerstner’s Designing Programmes and Metafont by Donald Knuth, Forte’s approach sees glyph contours as “a flexible physical envelope placed over a framework.”

Krata is a variable display typeface with a weight axis that pushes against the dogma of type design. With styles ranging from Thin (barely a whisper) to Black (nearly solid forms), Krata empowers designers to play with legibility.

Rémi Forte is a French designer, typography instructor, and foundry manager for 205TF. The small foundry based in Lyon, France supports a small number of creators and high-quality typefaces. Forte is also an artist whose work explores the interplay between poetic writing, type design, and programming.

Forte’s design approach may come from his interest in conceptual literature and concrete poetry, both of which necessitate unique and often rule-breaking typefaces. Krata came out of one such exploration, and now, with its release, can be used an manipulated by designers in new and broader contexts.

On his 205TF foundry profile, Forte explains his process: “I make extensive use of programming, exploring the vast creative possibilities that technology offers, including the development of my own tools. I create protocols for writing and scripts for the automation of page layout, as well as generative typefaces. However, my work is always rooted in the history of my discipline, recognizing that others have already explored, in various ways, the questions that I am passionate about.”

The post Krata is a Typeface that Bridges Design and Programming appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

This typeface’s lede had me at Finnish. Call me a sucker for Scandi design and sensibility, from adorable egg cups and everyday housewares to my pandemic Nordic Noir obsession. Why am I surprised that even a utilitarian government-issued vehicle identification has a certain quirky flair?

Piet was designed by Nils Thomsen, co-founder of the German foundry Typemates. Piet is actually a pair of typefaces: Sans and MONO, each with four weights, unconventional italics, and a host of Open Type features: subscripts, fractions, alternate glyphs, and the like. Across the system, Piet shares a love of strange numbers and deep, rounded ink traps.

Piet is bureaucratic at first sight, but with a closer look you’ll find the utilitarian hooked up to the weird, the stiff wired to the wonky, and the italics connected to the battery.

Typemates

MONO is fixed and angular, while Sans offers smoother forms and easier legibility. Stylistic sets both intensify and bridge the gap between the two, creating an ambitious type system that provides designers with a smorgasbord of possibilities: semi serifs for Sans, an alternate ‘a,’ upright italics, and a style set for MONO that intensifies its discordant white space.

At Typemates, you can learn more, play around with Piet, and find out what the foundry team is up to.

The post Piet’s Playful Pair Leans into the Strange appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Though Modwood seems to adhere to geometry, it’s also an organic shape-shifter. At times, its letterforms evoke cross-sections of centuries-old trees or blobs of slowly spreading viscous liquid. The eclectic font plays with the edges of legibility, but the eye doesn’t want to look away from Modwood’s Rorschach challenge. Is it architectural or amorphous? Or both?

[Modwood] can be playful, serious, rebellious, tribal, artsy-fartsy or just weird, depending on how you work it.

Adam G.

Modwood is not just a font; it’s a versatile tool that can transform your design projects. With a variety of glyphs, alternatives, and hidden easter eggs, it encourages designers to explore new design pathways. From digital to print to OOH, Modwood can elevate your projects and help you communicate a wide range of aesthetics, moods, and volumes.

Explore and license Modwood, available in .otf format, in Adam G’s messymod shop.

The post Architectural, Amorphous, and Adaptable Modwood appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Push’s visual character and personality shine through in the spacious counter of the capital ‘G,’ inspired by Thorowgood’s Seven-Line Grotesque (1830), and a lowercase ‘a’ (reminiscent of Plak, 1930) that presents as both squat and tall. Speaking of the letter ‘G,’ there’s also a looped American version, an open-looped Danish version, and a two-story Grotesk in the lowercase set.

Across its eight weights, seven widths, and 56(!) styles, Push showcases a blend of the Old and New—a type chameleon for the designer’s toolbox. The range of possibilities across the width, weight, and shape spectrum gives designers typographic versatility for today’s multifaceted, complex, and multi-media brand applications.

Push was created by Swiss designer, Christine Gertsch out of Fontwerk, a Berlin foundry known for helping brands stand out with type.

Drawing the best from the past century of type design, Push has been a labor of love to create a typeface that works hard under any conditions and will endure the test of time.

Christine Gertsch

Fontwerk tapped Rocket & Wink, a design-art-graphic-brand-bureau-agency-whatever (their words) from Hamburg, Germany, to create a video campaign that showcases Push in all its glory.

The post This Typeface Pushes Against All the Right Boundaries appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The letterforms are organic, demonstrative, sculptural, and spacious. Pitanga is confident but flexible with eight weights and two styles. Its open aperture makes it legible in display and smaller text sizes. Charismatic diacritics bring personality to Pitanga’s Portuguese voice, but the typeface also supports more than 200 Latin script-based languages.

The Brazilian typographic studio describes Pitanga as a kid flying a kite on the beach in the Vidigal favela of Rio, a footballer’s twisted leg, or samba’s precise yet subtle footwork. You could say that Pitanga characterizes the Brazilian idea of “bossa” (talent, creativity, a new way of doing things).

Fabio Haag Type project credits: Creative Direction & Design – Sofia Mohr; Design Critiques – Fabio Haag, Henrique Beier, Ana Laydner & Eduilson Coan; Engineering – Henrique Beier; Graphic Design – Palp Studio; Illustration – Gabriel Diogo; Copywriting – Thiago Mattar

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Sharp Type is a global type foundry based in New York City. It was co-founded by Chantra Malee and Lucas Sharp and is known for font projects such as Ogg, Sharp Grotesk, and Sharp Sans. Chantra Malee, Sharp Type’s CEO, started the namesake scholarship fund as a passion project.

Malee was happy to answer a few questions about the scholarship, why she started it, and her experience as a woman of color in design. Our Q&A is below.

In past interviews, you’ve discussed type design being “beholden to the typographic exemplars of the past.” How have you experienced this in running a studio and digital foundry? Do you find that this reverence for what came before is diminishing?

It has become less relevant. The type design industry is rapidly evolving as the digitization of type becomes more and more accessible. Sure, there are still plenty of historic type figures that we revere. But inspiration comes from more than your antiquarian book market these days, and even more so from social media and transient digital landscapes, making it harder to cite and credit sources. This changes the landscape that type designers have been akin to for centuries. As a foundry, we have always relied on digital platforms to produce our work; however, we’re more careful not to jump the gun and share our work on our social channels before it is ready for release. In our excitement in the past, we have shown sketches very early in our design process, which has the potential to inspire others’ work, often resulting in uncomfortably similar work. While type design has been harder than ever to protect, it has never been easier and more widely accepted to experiment and push the limits. Sharp Type has taken great advantage of this progressive atmosphere. This past year, for example, we conducted extensive research to create a new Omni Latin character set and develop a complex Omni Latin tool to support indigenous languages in South/Central American and African regions that are not traditionally accommodated in the type world. This is an exciting example of the kind of work we can do now with all that is available to us. 

How does reverence for the past hurt or help today’s expanded design considerations, such as accessibility/readability and inclusiveness?

We live in a vastly different landscape than our predecessors, so it’s hard to compare our contemporary needs with theirs from the past. It’s important to have a healthy respect for them to learn and benefit from their triumphs and failures. Ignoring them would be a detriment to our progress as an industry. However, looking back shouldn’t bind us to a single track, and we should expand our awareness to incite constructive change in the industry. 

What sparked your idea to start a scholarship program? What specific experiences or aspirations led you to create the Malee Scholarship? 

As a young woman, I received a scholarship from The Urban League of Rhode Island. They granted me $5,000 cash to go toward my upcoming year in college to support me however I needed, whether for books, gas, food, or directly for my education. For me, what felt even more gratifying than receiving the money was being recognized, seen, and acknowledged. They believed in me and my potential and trusted me to use my best judgment to use the money however I needed. So, later in life, starting The Malee Scholarship came naturally to me. I had a good model. 

Paying it forward is an important aspect of my mission for The Malee Scholarship—to be grateful for any opportunities we may have had in life and offer support or mentorship when we’re in the position to do so. I actively choose not to dwell on any particular experience that I may have had but instead take action to make positive change. The Malee Scholarship was my effort to create an opportunity to uplift, recognize, and support other women from an underrepresented ethnic background. 

When I first entered the type industry, much like the world of branding where I started, there was space, and I felt a need for a platform like mine. I’m so proud and happy to see that more and more women from across the globe are getting much-deserved recognition and opportunity that further enriches our industry and paves the way for greater inclusiveness and creative progress. 

Typefaces created by Malee Scholarship winners and finalists.

How can type foundries and design studios further the work of this scholarship opportunity? Can you offer any insights from Sharp Type’s culture?

There is so much incredible talent out there. Work with people from all walks of life and use it to your advantage to learn. As a personal example, when we first invited My-Lan Thuong [left], who is half-Vietnamese, as a type designer to the team, she recognized that Vietnamese was widely unsupported. It didn’t take much to convince us to add Vietnamese support to our default character set. Just from that one connection and authentic relationship, we moved the needle in the right direction. That is one of many experiences we’ve had since the beginning. If you do that enough, you can make incredible progress and positive change.

While perusing the Sharp Type website, I found myself ogling Ogg [pictured below]. Do you have a favorite Sharp typeface? What’s next for the foundry?  

Oh boy, so many! Ogg is certainly one of my all-time favorites, but I’m also incredibly excited about what is around the corner. Next month is a big moment for us as a foundry. We will drop a brand new website and release our most expansive typeface ever called Sharp Earth, which took five years of development and will be available in seven language scripts and a plethora of global languages. We’ll also release our first published book, Sharp Type Volume 1, a visual homage to our 8+ years as a foundry. 

Header photo: past Malee Scholarship winners and finalists; all images courtesy Sharp Type.

The post Sharp Type’s Chantra Malee Wants to Pay it Forward appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The new identity also features Wilberforce Sans, a custom typeface designed in collaboration with Studio DRAMA.

Studio DRAMA’s Chris Nott (creative director) and Will Richardson (co-founder and creative director) drew inspiration from the RSPCA’s history of activism, specifically protest signage in the organization’s archives. The typeface got its name from this history: one of RSPCA’s founding members was the great abolitionist William Wilberforce. Nott and Richardson also wanted to invoke a different kind of provenance— the country’s Grotesque typographic tradition. For Wilberforce Sans, the team added a few unique deviations. Subtle stroke-weight contrasts deliver a hand-drawn quality, while ligatures embody togetherness and community.

Not wanting to shy away from the brand’s 200-year-old heritage, the bespoke font [designed in collaboration with Studio DRAMA] takes cues from protest placards found in the brand’s archive, designed to really get everyone to join the movement, and features echoes of the new illustration style.

Ellen Moriarity, Design Director, JKR

One of the more interesting aspects of Wilberforce Sans is that it works in concert with the new identity’s illustrated animal iconography. The Studio DRAMA team designed the typeface with soft ink traps that connect it to the accompanying animal icons, both visually and in its personality.

Borrowing from the RSPCA’s old logo, the “Octopunct” shape surrounding the word mark has been turned into punctuation and containers for the animal illustrations.

I was curious to get Studio DRAMA’s perspective on this project and more. My short Q&A with Chris Nott is below.

The RSPCA’s old brand has evolved from staid and somewhat cold into a bold and friendly identity. How does Wilberforce Sans help the larger brand communicate the urgency of the issue while also inviting people in?

Type plays a crucial role in shaping a brand’s voice, enabling it to communicate effectively with diverse audiences. For the RSPCA, the challenge for us was to craft a typeface that could convey both lighthearted and serious messaging, capturing the essence of their new positioning: ‘Rallying Humanity for Animals’.

The brief led us to the concept of a ‘Trusted Authoritarian’ voice. To delve deeper into this, we explored the typographic nuances of hand-drawn and woodblock printed protest placards and posters. Given the RSPCA’s rich history of activism and advocacy for animal welfare, this direction felt both natural and apt.

Our research into the RSPCA’s brand archives revealed typefaces that had also been used in protest contexts. This connection enriched the brand narrative, creating a stronger link between the RSPCA’s historical activism and its current branding.

A key aspect of our design approach was establishing two distinct typographic voices.

The primary voice for the core brand identity is predominantly uppercase, reflecting the brand’s bold, impactful, and urgent side. We ensured that the uppercase letterforms exuded authority through their bold and condensed structure, reinforcing the brand’s authoritative presence. Trustworthiness is conveyed by incorporating features inspired by the British grotesque style, such as enclosed apertures and terminals. These characteristics not only add a touch of playfulness to a rigid structure but also resonate with the brand’s serious yet approachable tone. Additionally, the softer details, like the ink traps, were inspired by the new illustration style, further infusing a more approachable and cohesive feel.

The secondary voice was designed to capture the lighter, more human and approachable side of the RSPCA. We developed a lowercase set featuring playful, almost ‘animal-like’ characters, such as the lowercase ‘g’.

This dualistic approach allows the RSPCA to communicate the gravity of animal welfare issues while also inviting the public to engage and connect with their mission.

A key aspect of our design approach was establishing two distinct typographic voices. This dualistic approach allows the RSPCA to communicate the gravity of animal welfare issues while also inviting the public to engage and connect with their mission.

Chris Nott, Creative Director, Studio DRAMA

In the last few years, we’ve seen many centuries-old institutions undertake major rebranding efforts, many of which lean heavily on iconography and type. Is this simply a trend? Or is there something more fundamental happening around the role of institutions and brands (or type) in society?

Both Will and I have over a decade of experience working in branding agencies. During this time, we’ve witnessed a significant shift in the role of custom type in branding, which led us to decide that it should be a core offering in our own business.

We’d go as far to say that type was often considered an afterthought in branding projects. However, it has now moved to the forefront, reflecting the evolving importance of typography in brand identity.

In today’s information-saturated landscape, brands are striving to be more distinctive and memorable. With the desire to own more than just a logo, the focus has expanded to include the very words they use. By crafting distinctive and recognisable typography, whether that’s through custom type or an ownable typographic approach, brands can establish a strong identity that resonates even when the logo is absent. 

In this context, if a brand can own the very words in which they communicate, making them distinctive enough to be recognisable without the logo, does it not become a compelling strategy to pursue?

Can you talk about your ethos as a partner foundry? How does this differentiate what Studio Drama does?

Both sides of the studio go hand-in-hand, complementing and enriching each other.

With a background in branding, we bring a strategic mindset to every custom typeface project we undertake. We not only design typefaces but also understand how they should be utilised. More often than not, we assist in creating guidelines on the optimal use of the typeface, whether it’s a single style display font or a comprehensive super family.

On the studio side, we aim to incorporate some element of custom type, whether that’s a bespoke logotype or mark, or a full custom typeface family.

On the foundry side, we bring our brand-first approach to type design, ensuring that our custom typefaces are not only visually compelling but also strategically aligned and effectively utilised.

What’s your dream partner project? Or, what are your favorite projects you’ve done on the foundry side (besides working with JKR on RSPCA, of course!)?

When it comes to dream projects, that’s a tough question! We’re currently in the midst of bringing one to life as we speak…

We thrive on collaboration, especially with other agencies and creative teams. This enables us to leverage our expertise in type design, invigorating and enhancing the broader brand exercise. If any teams are on the lookout for a type partner, just drop us a line!

As for favourite projects, Vogue Brasil definitely stands out. It was a dream from start to finish, not only because of the compelling brief but also due to the exceptional client relationship. This small but impactful project has opened numerous opportunities for us. It’s amazing the doors that type can open!

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Universal Principles of Typography (UPoT), a new book by Elliot Jay Stocks —published by Quarto and out today— answers this and so much more. The book’s 100 principles cover everything from the tactical to the compositional, sometimes pausing for the philosophical.

In the foreword by Ellen Lupton, author of the book on type, (and our guest for the next PRINT Book Club), we love how she explains the breadth of what Stocks has endeavored to do with UPoT:

“Typographic knowledge is an awkward mix of science (how people read), technology (what fonts can do), superstition (what folks believe on faith), hard-and-fast-rules (what editors and publishers have codified over time), and unspoken body language (how designers wiggle and fidget inside the rules, inventing new styles and mannerisms). Elliot explores all these forms of knowledge with pictures and words, helping designers navigate the facts and the fictions, and build their own typographic confidence.”

Stocks is a designer, writer, speaker, and musician living in Bristol, UK. He’s a former creative director for Adobe Typekit, creator of two printed publications (8 Faces and Lagom), and, in 2020, he teamed up with Google Fonts to create Google Fonts Knowledge.

To celebrate the launch of Universal Principles of Typography, Stocks indulged me by answering several type-related questions. Read the Q&A below.

Of all the principles of typography, what is your favorite, the one that you can’t unsee, the one that brings you joy when you see it in action?

There’s a chapter very early on in the book called “Avoid faux (or synthesised) styles” and that might be one of my favourites, purely because the web (and, to a lesser extent, print) is littered with faux italics and the like. As it says in the book, “sure, a faux italic never killed anyone, but it will certainly make you or your client look like you don’t care about doing things properly — and that’s rarely a message clients want to send.” I feel like that could be applied to typography as a whole: these things might seem pedantic at times, but cutting corners is ultimately going to have a negative impact on the end result.

Similarly, of all the principles of typography you laid out, what is one or two that have the power to change the way graphic designers view and compose their work (not just text)?

Probably the principle called “Balance distinction & harmony” because it can be applied to typography, or to design as a whole, or to pretty much any creative output. It’s important to remember that when we change something (a font weight, a column width, a note in a song), we’ve got to make sure that it’s distinct from the element it sits next to — the end user has to recognise it as a something different and then, having observed that, infer meaning from it; a meaning such as hierarchy, or perhaps just a feeling. But at the same time we need to ensure that the change we’re making still plays nicely with the other elements. So in typography, for instance, we might use a scale to define our different font sizes, but of course we also use scales in music. The idea is the same: make it obvious that there’s been a change, but give the user some context so that the change is a harmonious one.

We’ve been enjoying Elle Cordova’s anthropomorphic font videos. So, I’m curious: if you were personified by a typeface, which one would it be and why?

Oh, the number of non-type friends who sent me those videos! If I was a typeface, I’d probably be the recently released Bricolage Grotesque, designed by Mathieu Triay. It’s capable of some solid, useful work, but generally doesn’t take itself too seriously because it knows that having fun with the work is more important.

Given AI’s presence in our conversations about what graphic design and art-making will be in the future, do you have a 101st principle to offer on that topic as it relates to typography’s role or responsibility?

As with almost anything AI is touching right now, there’s the potential for it to make our lives easier — imagine a typographic AI assistant to help you pair type, perhaps working in the same way GitHub Copilot might help engineers code. But also there’s the potential for it to make poor decisions and then use its own poor decisions as reference points, flooding the internet with bad type and worse typography. My good friend Jamie Clarke recently wrote an article about this, and argued for us designers acting as tastemakers to help steer AI development in the right direction. Personally, I still flip-flop daily between being for or against AI, but ultimately it’s too huge a development to simplify in that way. It’s a bit like being for or against the internet. It’s going to change our life and work radically; as creatives and as humans, we need to position ourselves as best we can to benefit from its promises and help reduce the potential for its misuse.

Want more? Elliot Jay Stocks shares his love of all things typography as host of the podcast, Hello, type friends! and author of the newsletter, Typographic & Sporadic.

The post The Art & Science of Typography in 100 Principles appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

This year’s festival, which runs from June 10 through June 18, offers a Conference (June 14-15), a Workshop/Tour series, a Type Lab (demos, interviews, and more), a Book Fair, and many more paid and free events. Registration for the main stage conference is on sale now at a highly discounted early bird rate, which runs until April 30.

Typographics brings together global perspectives in web and app design, publication design, book design, type design, packaging, branding, corporate identity, advertising, motion graphics, information design, and hand and digital lettering. The festival focuses on typography and its future, so the speaker line-up includes emerging and established designers and programming designed to foster inclusive dialogue.

Typographics is organized by Type@Cooper, the leading post-graduate degree program in typeface design, the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography, a graphic design archive housing more than 6,000 pieces of design ephemera, and The Cooper Union School of Art.

The post 10th Annual Typographics Conference Announces Early-Bird Registration appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

But this is a story about type!

Future London Academy is based in its namesake city, one of the world’s most diverse and vibrant. Therefore, when creating a visual identity for its new program, any old typeface wouldn’t do. So, in-house designer Polina Kirei devised a custom type system: DLX Future.

Each character of DLX Future conveys the diversity of design leadership with a unique style and personality. Yet, every letter is built on the same foundation of five shapes: circle, square, triangle, rectangle, and a wriggle wire.

Each letter, just like each person, is unique and has been designed together with the Design Leaders Alumni. Fuzzy, sharp, or whimsical… you can feel the personality within each letter.

Future London Academy

DLX needed its identity to celebrate the diversity of design experience. It also desired a flexible and collaborative type system that could scale over time. One of the coolest aspects of the new system is that it changes year to year, with DLX alumni contributing a custom glyph upon graduation.

We love DLX Future because it could be the poster child for the type exuberance we showcased in our 2024 Typography Report: A Circus of Type.

The post A Custom Type System for Design Leadership’s Diverse and Evolving Body appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

This is the pressing question begged by comic Elle Cordova’s hysterically perceptive font impression videos, which took Design Internet by storm at the beginning of the year. Cordova released a series of videos on her Instagram in which she put on the personas of some of our industry’s most well-known and frequently used typefaces as they hang out with each other, from Times New Roman to Courier to Impact. In her first skit, she cleverly implies a flirtation between the noted sans serifs Arial and Helvetica, and even drops a “Grotesk” knee-slapper. Papyrus makes a goofy cameo in each, along with Dingbats, Calibri, and others.

The PRINT team couldn’t get enough of these videos, and we wanted to get in on the fun! We decided to reflect on the typefaces we most identify with in terms of personality and aura, and each chose one we thought captured our essence the best. Our selections are below!

Debbie Millman is Peignot.

I have a silly favorite typeface; it is Peignot. It was the headline font I used in college at the student newspaper, which is where I first learned about design. AND (as importantly) it was the centerpiece of the opening of one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. According to the Museum of Broadcasting, the show was a revolutionary breakthrough, and featured Mary Richards as the first never-married, independent career woman as the central character. As Mary Richards, a single woman in her thirties, Moore presented a character different from other single TV women of the time. She was not widowed or divorced or seeking a man to support her.

Steven Heller is Bestial Bold.

Bestial Bold designed by Seymour Chwast fits me to a cap T. In fact, to a S-T-E-V-E-N. The A represents the young bold, swaggering hippie. The B suggests a post-hippie maturity (and weight gain); the C is the self-doubting introverted beast in me.

Kim Tidwell is Carose.

I’m a sucker for clear, open typefaces with a little something left of center (like me). And ampersands. Carose has a lovely one that propels forward. As of late, I find myself growing out of my long-term relationship with Futura and seeking a little movement. Carose’s friendly, flowy horizontals and descenders make me feel like rolling the top down, throwing out the map, and setting off to some unknown destination.

Laura Des Enfants is Garamond +Times New Roman.

I’m so disappointed that I cannot be Helvetica, but I‘m just not that classically cool. I fall between Times New Roman and Garamond. I want to be completely Garamond (or Bodoni) who seems like someone who’s “been there, done that,” but is not completely jaded. Plus, it’s Garamond! I like anyone who can say “darling” and doesn’t sound completely ridiculous.

Deb Aldrich is Comic Sans.

Do you remember the game app, “Type: Rider”? It came out in 2013, and I used to play it at the start of every plane ride I was on. You had to move a colon punctuation mark through typeface chapters. The last chapter was Comic Sans— it was goofy, it was hard, it had a kitten in it. Need I say more?

I know it’s not appropriate in every occasion (sound familiar)? But, Comic Sans usually means well.

Amelia Nash is Black Mango.

Trying to find a font I most identify with turned out to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated. How do you pick ONE font from the oodles that exist? So like any other self-respecting Millennial, I turned to a Buzzfeed quiz to find out “Which Font Matches [My] Personality Perfectly”. After overthinking the questions and sweating over the best responses for me, Buzzfeed churned out Black Mango by Creative Media Lab. Mangoes happen to be my favorite fruit, so I took it as a sign. “Just like this font, you are a unique twist on a classic. You say just enough without saying too much. Just beautiful.”

I’ll take it. And as it turns out, I really do love this font.

Charlotte Beach is Motter Ombra.

I consider myself bubbly and spunky with a retro flair, just like the wonderful Motter Ombra (Othmar Motter, 1972). There are traces of class expressed through the letters’ over-sized and bulbous serifs, but quirkiness and fun ultimately win the day, which is a ratio I deeply identify with.

The post If the PRINT Team Were Typefaces… appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

For Keva Epale, an independent Parisian art director and illustrator, Mild is her first lettering experiment. Inspired by a client’s brand exploration, the idea for Mild wouldn’t let her go even after her client picked a different concept. Epale continued sketching and experimenting with the forms.

What Mild lacks as an exhaustive font family (it is available only in caps, for example), it makes up for in playfulness and personality. The family includes rounded and angular versions, with a few basic alternate styles.

The post Mild is an Expressive Sketching Experiment Turned Typeface appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

What struck us was Splinter’s graphic quality. The font plays with the limits of legibility, presenting itself as a sort of futuristic dot matrix with opportunities for patterns and graphic flourishes.

Splinter’s visual presentation aside, we love the ride-along on Goyal’s process, which she outlines in the Splinter Diaries. The series is for Universal Thirst Gazette, an online resource for designers, researchers, and students to encourage discussion and interest in Indic type (and type generally).

In her first installment for the Splinter Diaries, Goyal lays out her initial exploration of a grid-based system and how to render the shirorekha (or the horizontal line above the characters), diacritics such as matras (vowel modifiers), conjuncts (adjoining consonants), and symbols such as the kana (क, ठ, with a central vertical stem).

Top: found lettering, the title of a book by Hindi author Devendranath Sharma. The creator of the cover design is unknown;
Bottom: the digitized version.

For now, Splinter supports the basic Devanagari character set and some support for Hindi conjuncts and Marathi and Nepali glyphs. The typeface will expand as it develops to cover the Latin upper case, followed by other Indic scripts. Find Splinter on FutureFonts.

Namrata Goyal pursued her love of type at TypeAtCooper in New York and TypeMedia at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague, Netherlands (her thesis explored newspaper type and multi-script typography). At Universal Thirst, Namrata primarily focuses on North Indian and Latin scripts. She also publishes independent projects on FutureFonts.

The post Splinter is a Graphic and Modular Typeface With Devanagari Roots appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The Holdovers – Gelica

The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne and starring national treasure Paul Giamatti, is a dramedy set in 1970 about a group of kids at a prep school with no families to go home to over their holiday break. As a result, they stay behind with their curmudgeonly teacher (Giamatti), and heartwarming antics ensue. The film’s time period, the retro prep-school setting, and overarching feel-good warmth all ladder up to the Gelica typeface. Designed by Dave Rowland and published by Eclectotype Fonts, Gelica is an approachable, soft serif imbued with a classic and cheerful affect.

Anatomy of a Fall – Vienna Woodtype

In sharp contrast to The Holdovers’ feel-good, family-friendly vibe is the French film Anatomy of a Fall. Directed by Justine Triet, the film depicts the story of a woman attempting to prove her innocence in the death of her husband, who has fallen from their home’s attic window. The tone of the film is intensely suspenseful and gripping, which Vienna Woodtype (designed by Christoph Zeugswetter and published by xtoph) taps into with its ghostly wood-block printed effect. Zeugswetter used real prints made from a linocut to create the font, with each glyph handprinted, scanned, and then converted into a computer font.

Barbie – Belinda New

A film that has taken each facet of the design industry and every corner of our visual culture by storm, Barbie from Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie, is high femme with a powerful backbone. Belinda New by Melvastype strikes this same chord as a classic brush script that has strength and elegance in equal measure.

American Fiction – Typewriter 1950 Tech Mono

American Fiction, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright, portrays the ridiculousness of our society’s obsession with a stereotypical concept of “Black” culture and entertainment through the story of a Black novelist at the end of his rope in the publishing industry. After penning a satire of a “Black” book that publishers and the public mistake as earnest literature, he finds himself at the center of a web of lies and social critique. Typewriter 1950 Tech Mono (designed by Manuel Viergutz and published by Typo Graphic Design) takes the style of a traditional Courier typewriter font that’s long been a visual shorthand for books and book publishing. Then, it subverts tradition with loose treatment of each letterform, harkening to the imperfections of screen-printing and protest signs.

Killers of the Flower Moon – Mesquite

Martin Scorsese’s Western crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon recounts the true story of the systematic serial murders of the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma in the 1920s once oil was discovered on their land. Starring (who but!) Leonardo DiCaprio, along with breakout star Lily Gladstone, the period piece harnesses a traditional Western visual language with a sinister, bloody twist. Mesquite is a Tuscan-style typeface from designer Joy Redick that elicits this same tone. It has a clear Western typographic foundation, dramatized by exaggerated sharp serifs.

Past Lives – Voyage

The romantic drama Past Lives by Celine Song, starring Greta Lee with Teo Yoo, encompasses a decades-long love story between two childhood friends from South Korea. The elegance and inherent romance of the typeface Voyage from VJ Type exudes the same tone. There’s a sentimentality to this display typeface, with delicate hairlines that loop backward and forward gracefully, connecting letters romantically like the characters in the film.

Maestro – Magnet

Bradley Cooper directs and stars in Maestro, which chronicles the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan). The ambitious, sweeping drama explores the complicated beauty and pain of a long-term relationship, which is not unlike the story behind the typeface Magnet by Inga Plönnigs for Frere-Jones.

Oppenheimer – Territory

A period thriller from Christopher Nolan starring Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer tells the true story of the invention of the atomic bomb during World War II. Territory by Reygraphic is a frenetic, experimental typeface based on graphic elements inspired by sound waves. The distorted energy and illegibility of Territory speaks to the disorientation of an explosion and the impact of the atomic bomb on society, and the lives of the people who brought it into being.

Territory also made it into our 2024 PRINT Typography Report.

Poor Things – Onyxia

Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, comes from the other-worldly mind of director Yorgos Lanthimos. The magical-realistic drama, with a dark comedic twist, spins the outrageous tale of the endlessly captivating Bella Baxter, who has been brought back to life by a mad scientist after her suicide. Much of the film is visually grotesque and unsettling, while simultaneously gorgeous and ornate. The highly contrasted display font Onyxia from Pixel Surplus portrays this same juxtaposition, with funky, overlapping characters and bendy letterforms that are at once wonky and elegant.

The Zone of Interest – Lombok Typeface

A period drama from director Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest tells the story of Rudolf Hess, a Nazi officer and Auschwitz commandant, and his family, who build an idealized life beside the camp. Glazer uses absence as a tool throughout the film, never revealing the imagery of the camp. Lombok from Alexandre Pietra similarly harnesses the power of absence and negative space by alluding to strategically removed aspects of letters.

The post This Year’s Best Picture Oscar Nominees as Typefaces appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Designed by Alexander Wright and developed by Rodrigo Fuenzalida, Zanco is described by its creators as “a celebration of delicious contrasts.” Extreme verticals meet soft curves and funky weight distribution—serving up an impactful display font that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

There’s also the climate-optimism jumping from the type samples. We love that the foundry team created an irreverent campaign for an imagined climate conference, asking us to “embrace action with joyful determination.” Zanco gets the point across without condescension.

The letterforms range from lanky to heavy; the bottom halves resemble glam platform shoes. Fans of Art Nouveau will appreciate the skinny ascenders and the varied curvature of the counters and symbols. Zanco works on a range of projects, from logomarks to packaging to motion. We love it for billboards and poster designs, where you want the type to speak as loudly as the message.

In-House Int’l studio foundry, part of the Austin, Texas-and-Barcelona, Spain-based creative agency In-House International, has graced our Type Tuesday column before with Brinca.

Learn more about Zanco, the Foundry, and In-House International.

Creative & production: Michu Benaim Steiner, Alexander Wright, Luis Carlos Redondo.

The post Nostalgia, Fun, and Impact Come Together in Zanco appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The brainchild of Mario Carpe, a Spain-based graphic designer, You Are My Type, explores the visual nature of words. When Carpe stepped away from his usual illustrative work to experiment with typography, he immediately found an incredible build-up of creative energy, enough to produce the body found in the three volumes, with presumably more to come. Using a relatively straightforward process, Carpe started with rough sketches, which he pulled into Illustrator to manipulate and test layouts. The designer used many familiar phrases and quotes but wanted to go beyond the words’ known meaning to embody the words and phrases expressively.

Carpe’s compositions communicate through his experimentation with type, but each volume has a thematic element. You Are My Type Vol. 1 is inspired by our social and working lives. The second volume explores diverse themes, from love and passion to self and societal commentary. In volume 3, Carpe delves into humorous introspection and personal growth, with a little social critique on the side.

Each work within the series presents letters as more than symbols; they are vessels of emotion, meaning, and thought.

Mario Carpe

Individually, the compositions express meaning, emote, inspire, notice, and protest. When viewed as a whole, the compilation is visual candy, a dazzling visual array. You Are My Type is a studio-ready flip book of color and typographic inspiration.

Images © Mario Carpe.

The post Mario Carpe’s Joyful Three-Volume Type & Visual Exploration appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Like love, you just know when you find the right font pairing.

Monotype recently launched an A.I. font-pairing tool to help designers streamline this process. Regarding A.I.-driven assistance for designers, we love the potential for this tool to speed up the selection process and expose us to possibilities outside our personal frames of reference. Read more about the tool.

Font pairings are extremely valuable; they provide variety, functionality, and tone of voice, sparking a new brand or breathing life into an old one.

Monotype, on the release of the A.I. font-pairing tool

Even if Valentine’s Day is our least-favorite holiday, we can all get behind fantastic typeface duos. So, we asked several designers about their favorite type pairs. Their responses (100% designer-generated and not A.I.) are below.

Giuseppe Salerno & Paco González @ Resistenza

Giuseppe Salerno: Turquoise Tuscan and Mina Chic

“This pairing is perfect for its captivating contrast. [Mina Chic] introduces a sense of personality and warmth with its handwritten charm, while the Roman [Turquoise Tuscan] imparts structure and readability through its classic letterforms and the Tuscan serifs. This combination creates a timeless choreography, perfect for evoking a classic romantic essence. Together, they strike a harmonious balance between tradition and modernity, crafting a visual symphony that leaves a lasting impression. What a delightful fusion!”

A tip from Giuseppe: “Dive into the OpenType features to uncover a wide array of alternate letters and swashes, empowering you to fashion a unique composition tailored to your creative vision.”

Paco González: Norman and Nautica

“Norman, a condensed serif font, and Nautica, a classic script font with a romantic flair, offer a delightful fusion of styles. Both fonts boast an extensive array of alternate letters and swashes, allowing for easy customization through OpenType. Nautica injects personality and whimsy, while Norman provides a solid foundation of structure and clarity combined with an elegant sense of style. This unexpected pairing creates a lovely synergy that seamlessly blends modernity with timeless elegance, making it exceptionally versatile for various applications. Together, Norman and Nautica form a perfect match, a harmonious duet that ensures every glance becomes an unforgettable experience.”

Resistenza is a type foundry consisting of Giuseppe Salerno, a trained calligrapher who gained his graphic design skills in Torino, Italy, and Paco González, a self-taught Spanish-born designer from Valencia. Working mostly by hand, a bold, humanistic quality comes through in their graphic design, emphasizing a connection with the places and people that use a particular product or service.

Marie Boulanger, Design Team Lead @ Monotype

Juana and Cooper BT

“Love means something different to everyone, but I am going to go with my current definition and experience of romantic love. You need a mix of friction and compatibility for good results, and I guess that applies to type choices too! It’s boring when things are too smooth. You can engineer and craft the perfect hypothetical pair, but sometimes you need a little bit of weirdness for it to work. Think of the best couples you know! My own perfect pair of fonts for Love-themed designs would be something like Juana, a sharp and refined serif, with Cooper BT. Everyone knows Cooper Black, but it looks beautiful in lighter weights two. 

While this pairing is more instinctive than based on algorithm,  I like the effect of using sharp and soft letters in such close proximity. Love is never boring, and things are always changing.”

French-British Type designer Marie Boulanger leads the Design Team at Monotype, creating compelling visual assets and design-led campaigns that push the cultural conversation around linguistics and type design.

Joana Correia @ Nova Type

Lemongrass and Brandon Grotesque

“As the perfect pair I have chosen my font Lemongrass because I love script fonts and this was a love affair when designing it. It shows sweetness but also vibrant and energetic. I paired it with Brandon Grotesque because of the contrast and complementary aspect to them. Brandon Grotesque was one of my first loves in typography. I love the round corners and old school design. I think it matches great with Lemongrass and brings balance but still keeping a sweet look. Lemongrass is part of Nova Type Foundry library and Brandon Grotesque from HVD fonts that I admire and have inspired me to be a type designer. 

For me love language is humor and playfulness. I think it’s important in Love to keep humor and playfulness as part of the relationship to make it last with compassion and kindness. These two typefaces mean kindness and openness to live life. These two typefaces connect to what I like to bring to live in my designs, kindness, a warm look and openness. They show a bit of who I am as well. 

I like the old school and decorative aspect to the fonts relating it to the 90’s when I was a teenager and finding out what love is.”

Joana Correia is a multi-award winning type designer, speaker, and founder of Nova Type, an independent font foundry specializing in original fonts and infusing content with emotion.

John Roshell @ Swell Type

Matinee Idol and Paradise Point

“Matinee Idol may be a high class script font, but it’s ready to kick off its shoes and have a good time. Paradise Point is playful and unpretentious, but also sturdy and reliable — it’s a font that can take you on a surprise weekend getaway with all the details worked out. 

These fonts were both drawn with a single rounded pen stroke, which makes them look great together. And coincidentally, both were inspired by lettering I found on movie posters — Matinee Idol from the 1940s, and Paradise Point from the ‘60s. Is this a meet cute or what?”

Building on decades of experience as a designer of fonts for comic books, video games, TV shows and movies, John Roshell’s Swell Type takes inspiration from the real-world signs and scenery of California.

Give Monotype’s new font-pairing tool a test drive here.

The post Types of Love: Designers’ Favorite Typeface Pairs appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Designed by the South American type foundry, PampaType, Perec Scripte’s loopy, bubbly, cheerful style contrasts with its angular, linear, grotesque sans sibling. The Perec superfamily is named after the French novelist, filmmaker, and experimenter extraordinaire George Perec. It’s a fitting name given how PampaType’s design team likes to play with form, aiming for originality over easily classified.

I have always loved store signs with script style letters, especially if, while trying to evoke an existing font, it remains half hidden under the personal interpretation of the sign maker.

Alejandro Lo Celso

“Perec Scripte is part of the Perec superfamily, an ongoing project I started in 2009 as a tribute to one of my favorite authors, Georges Perec, singular writer, tireless explorer of wordplay, champion of refreshing the literary conventions of his time,” PampaType’s founder and creative director, Alejandro Lo Celso writes. “The idea of an additional script style for the Perec family was suggested by the driving force of the project itself, the invention of self-imposed challenges, in this case, how to combine within the text a script font with a sanserif grotesque.”

Even though Perec Scripte looks like a tangent, you’ll come to see the Perec system as its design team sees it: a “diverse palette of easily combinable forms.” What’s cool about Perec Script is its versatility. It’s a combination of two writing styles, bound and unbound. Through its design challenge, the results include linked and unlinked forms, six weights, a decorative version full of impact, robust linguistic support, and lots of typographic extras. It’s not only for display, either, adding a playful yet easily readable flow to body text.

Alejandro Lo Celso founded Pampa Type, Argentina’s first independent type foundry, in Cordoba in 2001. With a team that now spans from South and Central America to France and Dubai, Pampa Type prides itself on organic, handcrafted letterforms and impeccable attention to detail.

Learn more about Perec Scripte and the Perec superfamily.

The post The Perec Family’s New Script-y Sibling appeared first on PRINT Magazine.