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 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

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Iglesias started with the classic forms inherent in iconic “Old Style” fonts such as Bembo and Garamond and experimented with adding elements more typically found in Gothic and Art Nouveau styles: exaggerated ornamentation, organic flourishes, flamboyant capitals.

Through his three-year experimentation, Iglesias developed ultra-display alternatives for uppercase letters. By reducing the contrast between strokes and playing with the height of the verticals, he could also achieve legibility at smaller sizes.

Iglesias specializes in motion, web, and editorial design at Mubien, a studio in Santander, Spain. He also moonlights as a professor of motion graphics at a local university. Type design is his side hustle, which he enjoys because it engages both his technical and creative sides. “I delve into constructing the entire visual language surrounding the font, from its foundations to each application within the font story.”

His mission for any typeface project has always been straightforward licensing and fair pricing for small and medium-sized businesses.

Read more about Galnoy on Behance. And, try out a weight for free.

All images and videos courtesy of Daniel Iglesias.

Recently, the firm created a custom set of playing cards in collaboration with the Historic Districts Council (HDC) and renowned type designer Tobias Frere-Jones. The Rowhouse Playing Card deck celebrates the beauty and utility of these 19th and early-20th-century architectural gems across Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and The Bronx.

The cards feature The Brooklyn Studio’s favorite rowhouses in various architectural styles, from Flemish Renaissance to Federalist, rendered in watercolor by artist Diane Hu.

The Brooklyn Studio chose Community Gothic —specifically, an unreleased weight, Extra Condensed Medium – from Frere-Jones Type for the typography. Inspired by 19th-century printing, Community Gothic’s gritty forms and somewhat irregular curves embody the imperfections of small jobbing presses of the time. Community Gothic was a perfect anchor for the Rowhouse deck artwork. Christopher Devine, a consultant who oversaw the design of the playing cards, said. “There is a remarkable parallel between Community Gothic and New York City rowhouses. Today, we tend to romanticize rowhouses, but their design and construction were rooted in utility. Community Gothic was created in a similar spirit: it celebrates the ordinary, utilitarian letterforms that characterized nineteenth-century print culture.” 

“In addition to philosophical and historical parallels,” Devine said. “Community Gothic and Hu’s illustrations share some noteworthy aesthetic similarities. The typeface’s letterforms are characterized by slightly irregular, asymmetrical outlines, which mirror the playful irreverence of Diane’s watercolors. From the day Community Gothic was released in late 2022, I had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to specify this typeface. As soon as Diane signed onto the playing card project, it was clear that the time had come.”

With the illustrations and typeface in place, one crucial design element remained. “Pairing Community Gothic with a set of crisply drawn suits would be, to paraphrase Adrian Frutiger, like wearing jeans and a tailcoat, “ said Devine. 

So, Devine approached renowned type designer Tobias Frere-Jones to design custom suits. “Tobias grew up in Brooklyn and is something of a resident expert on nineteenth-century New York City. He responded right away, said that he’d love to be involved, and we had a call the following day. Beyond some general details, I did not provide any specific artistic direction; I trusted his instincts wholeheartedly.”

Rounding out the design is a card back featuring a delightfully asymmetrical Flemish bond pattern evoking a 19th-century bricklaying technique, created using hyphens and en-dashes from the Community Gothic family.

Part of the proceeds from Rowhouse Playing Cards go to the HDC to help them continue their work advocating for New York’s historic neighborhoods. Learn more and shop on The Brooklyn Studio’s website. 

Find out more about Frere-Jones’ 2022 release of Community Gothic in this article on their website by Elizabeth Goodspeed, and here, in our Type Tuesday feature from early 2023.

Christopher Devine also oversaw the design of The Brooklyn Studio LEGO set, featuring Brooklyn highlights such as the Carroll Street Bridge, Park Slope rowhouses, and Grand Army Plaza. Like the Rowhouse Playing Card deck, part of the proceeds support HDC’s mission.

Photographs by Ethan Herrington.

Monotype and Neurons, an applied neuroscience company, are collaborating to answer why and how and many more questions about the cultural differences in perceiving meaning and emotion in type. Monotype has released the first results of their ongoing study, revealing the emotional impact and cultural nuances of fonts across eight different countries: Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Portugal, Spain, the UK, and the US (with plans for more).

Here are three interesting findings.

English-speaking countries are not a monolith.

In the US, UK, and Australia, different typefaces resonated for the value of trust. One value these three countries share is distinction, so it pays to be repetitive, memorable, and build an easily recognizeable identity.

Neither is Europe.

France, Portugal, and Spain preferred classic serif styles. All three countries scored highly for associations such as surprising, so they might be the perfect market to try something more avant-garde or shocking.

Unlike many of its Romance language-speaking neighbors, the research found that Germans favored bold visuals and tended to value prominence and memorability. Germany scored lower on all other emotional attributes, such as trust, honesty, and quality.

The one thing they share? A love for Cotford, above.

In Japan, handwritten attributes and traditional forms win the day.

This is Monotype’s first foray into Japanese, Chinese, and Korean type research, but with its acquisition of Fontworks last year, it stands to reason that we will see a lot more in the future. In this initial data finding, the experts selected fonts to test the matching stimuli of the Western regions, and all the results defied expectations. The Japanese audience scored gothic, low-contrast, humanistic fonts highly for innovation. With its expressive brushwork and embellished serifs, Shuei Min scored highly for trust, honesty, and authenticity.

“Everyone brings their own history and personal perceptions to a typeface,” says Phil Garnham, Executive Creative Director at Monotype. “But what’s fascinating about our research is that it reveals those perceptions are, at least in part, influenced by where we live and the history of our culture and language. Our research is not exhaustive (to date, we’ve studied eight countries around the world) and as we continue to expand and diversify our research program with Neurons, we expect to uncover more insights on the complex, nuanced, and infinitely fascinating interplay between type and emotion.”

Read about the initial findings, samples, and survey methods in the e-book, available at Monotype – Typography Matters.

Banner image elements and e-book snapshots courtesy of Monotype.

Variability sets Hour apart despite the typeface having only two axes. The first, “hour,” acts as a sundial, determining the angle of light; the second, “okta,” pulls from the meteorological concept of cloud cover, playing with the intensity of light, from opaque cloud cover to a sunny, clear day.

This movement of light around the forms gives Hour an infinite quality and makes it uniquely suited for motion design. Hour can also be used for eye-catching display.

On his 205TF foundry profile, Barrios talks about his work and process. While typeface designers work with some formal and technical restraints, he explains, Barrios thinks about his craft more as a “sculptor who gives form to language.” The fact that the foundry places a high value on experimentation is perfect for his process because he believes that accidents are an ideal proving ground for new typefaces. Barrios says that, with accidents, “I rule out the most obvious solutions and discover the most interesting ones.”

Learn more about Federico Parra Barrios and follow his work on Instagram @federicoparrabarrios and at 205TF.

About 205TF

205TF is a small foundry based in Lyon, France, supporting a small number of creators and high-quality typefaces with a ‘certain French spirit.’ The foundry brings together both type designers at the pinnacle of their craft and those who are beginning their career.

Editor’s Note: We received an email from the author introducing us to this incredible store, so we invited her to write about it.

The buildings are gone, but the letters survive. I live by a parking lot piled high with those letters. Asphalt forms the baseline if assembled into a paragraph; chain link fences justify them. Individually, the letters are four inches or four feet tall, a gathering of signage letterforms of all sizes, fonts, and colors, all askew, quietly waiting for new words.

Little kids (or corresponding designers) can play with them, stack them, crash them, and dance with them. Spell with them. It used to be that typographers always interacted physically with letters, whether wood or metal or photo proofs. The process sparked creativity.

Everyone here in the neighborhood knows about the letters. “Oh yeah, the letter place.” That would be hunt & gather. Over 28 years, owner Kristi Stratton’s “vintage amusement store” in Minneapolis has sold oddities and curiosities, letters included. The letter lot just evolved. Today, it flourishes thanks to her long-established network of construction workers, friends, and salvagers who call their letter finds in, set a price, and drop them off. 

I was one. I called Stratton about a dumpster full of “Gap” letters I found in an alley behind a remodeling project—such an undignified place for those beautiful letters. The workers said I could have them, so I grabbed one, and Stratton rescued the rest.

This collection, however, requires a unique typographer. Meet Charlotte Staid. She’s mastered an area of typography you don’t get in design school. Markup is irrelevant; what point size would a letter four feet high be? And the fonts, only some are recognizable — in condensed, script, or italic forms. Exclamation marks, question marks, and periods, too. All in colors. Then there are mysterious letters belonging to some long lost logo, designer unknown.

Staid sorts the new arrivals and fills orders. Typesetting becomes a matter of hunting and climbing, with a bit of snow shoveling. If you need a red, lowercase “h,” Staid knows where it might be. Needless to say, there’s no spell check.

Nor are there alphabets. Staid has problem letters. Without intact alphabets, availability is an issue. “The letters have ‘scrabble value,'” she says. “Rare, high-value scrabble letters are just as scarce and prized on the lot. Like the ‘j,’ it’s always a problem. I take the top of a ‘t’ and splice it into part of a ‘u.’ It becomes a ‘j.'” Fusing all sides and surfaces of plastic and metal is part of her typesetting skills. It gives a new meaning to “make ready.

She digs out or sets “Will you marry me?” or “Congratulations!” or simply a graduate’s name for the front yard. Or she can compose them as decorations: “Eat” or “Joy.” Or find perfectly entangled initials for a bookshelf. Sometimes, Staid arrives in the morning to words on the sidewalk from the previous night’s fence-jumping typesetters, “profound but mostly profane.”

One customer mounted a “ya” on his garage; then his next-door neighbor thought it would be hysterical to respond to their “ya” with ubiquitous Minnesota “no”….ya no? 

These piles of weathered old letters survive to speak from new buildings and say new things. In Minnesota, we celebrate creative reuse, ya, no?

Visit hunt & gather at 4944 Xerxes Avenue South in Minneapolis, or check them out on Instagram, Facebook, or X (Twitter).

Photos courtesy of Susan Dietrich and Charlotte Staid.

Check out our top ten typography features for 2023.

1. Why Are People Mad About the New Nokia Logo— and Is It Warranted?

Despite now being a predominantly B2B brand, Nokia clearly wanted to signal to the world that Nokia is changing— strategically and as a business— and they wanted to do it in a bold manner. They wanted a javelin thrown into the future. This logo is the sharp end.

2. The 2023 PRINT Typography Report: Why Type Empathy Matters

2023 has barely come into vision, but a new objective in typography is clear—type empathy. 

That is, the ability to widen the lens—historically, culturally, orientationally—on how we teach typography and create it. Can we further our awareness and create more meaningful dialogue with one another through more diverse typography choices?

3. Clear Your Schedules: The Monotype 2023 Type Trends Report Has Just Landed

What’s better than a typography trend report? How about a typography trend report assembled by some of the most trusted experts in the field?

4. For Paula Scher, Type is Image

For those who seek to be entranced by the full body of Paula Scher’s work, we’re lucky: she was commissioned to create Type Is Image, a major solo installation inspired by five decades of her work at Die Neue Sammlung— The Design Museum in Munich.

5. There’s Nothing ‘Arrogant’ About This Sunny, Psychedelic Typeface

Graphic designer Carmen Nácher‘s typeface Arrogant embraces the psychedelic, organic, swirling nature that recent design has gravitated toward. The font is bold and effervescent, distorting letters to create curly forms that feel intrinsically human and unprocessed.

6. Pentagram Plays with Letters for Liberty’s New Capsule Collection

You don’t often get a creative brief containing a simple directive to play and experiment, especially when the appeal comes from a 148-year-old brand at the forefront of design. Yet that’s precisely the request Pentagram’s Harry Pearce received from Liberty Fabrics Design Director Mary-Ann Dunkley.

7. Typotheque’s Peter Bil’ak on How Font Foundries Can Keep Centuries-Old Languages Alive

As globalization makes the world feel ever more homogenized, it’s vital to preserve authentic scripts and languages that carry details and nuances of centuries-old cultures. This past spring, the Dutch Foundry Typotheque ceremoniously launched 30 new Georgian typefaces with a book, symposium, ten-minute documentary, and exhibition in Tbilisi.

8. Monotype and Canva Launch a Five-Part Type Curriculum for Classrooms

Co-authored by Monotype and Canva, The Foundation of Typography educational series includes lecture topics, in-class discussions, and activities for students to explore and expand their relationship to design.

9. Monotype Acquires Fontworks: An Interview with Creative Type Director, Akira Kobayashi

This fall, Monotype announced the acquisition of Fontworks in Japan. We sat down with Akira Kobayashi, Creative Type Director at Monotype and 2022 Type Directors Club Medal winner, to discuss the acquisition and his thoughts on this new era of global type design.

10. A Font Designed from Historical Handwriting Tells the Story of Water in Reno

Confluence (now installed) is a 4,000+ word prose poem, winding for a mile along Reno’s Truckee River, expressing how water shapes and is shaped by all it moves through. Artist and writer Todd Gilens created the custom cursive font from historical handwriting samples compiled during his research.

I recently read an excellent interview with UK-based independent lettering artist and type designer Jamie Clarke (part of an announcement that Jamie Clarke Type has joined Type Network). Lucas Czarnecki, Type Network’s director of content, chatted with Clarke about his practice and why illustration is central to his typographic work.

Before starting Jamie Clarke Type, Clarke co-owned and ran a web and digital design agency in London from 2003 to 2013. Creative burnout left him looking for his next chapter and he turned to his love of typography. In the ensuing decade, Clarke has produced a host of interesting typefaces, including Brim, Rig Shaded, Span, and SideNote (the latter sparked by his desire for “business casual” annotations).

Learn what it was like to work with Folio Society on a limited edition cover for the 70th anniversary of Casino Royale and why he’s itching to do some work for a wine or spirits brand. Read the full interview on Type Network.

Launched in 2016, Type Network partners with type designers around the world (45 foundries from 15 countries so far) to “provide their clients with the best type in the world.” Czarnecki plans more in depth interviews in the coming weeks. Typophiles can find more stories (and fonts by Jamie Clarke Type) at typenetwork.com.

Though he started Vocal Type in 2015, until this fall, Seals hadn’t fully fleshed out his brand identity. VTC Tré is the fruit of that exploration, which Seals launched on this 30th birthday along with his personal portfolio site treseals.com.

But, rather than me telling you about the history of VTC Tré (Vocal Type does a bang-up job here), Seals was gracious enough to answer a few questions.

(This conversation has been edited slightly for clarity.)

During a post-talk Q&A session a few years ago, someone from the audience asked, “Do you consider yourself an activist, and if so, will you make a font inspired by your own story?” How would you answer the first part of this question today? 

TS: When the question was first posed, I thought activists were people like Martin [Luther King], Bayard [Rustin], Eva [Perón], Carrie [Chapman Catt], and so on—people who were actively in the streets and organizing. It wasn’t until I began working on VTC Du Bois and studying the works of W.E.B. Du Bois that I realized there were different types of activism. Prior to that, it didn’t occur to me that activism did not necessarily require protest signs and multi-miked podiums. I learned that activism, in its various forms, sometimes meant inserting oneself into spaces in which we (people of color) have been excluded. It wasn’t until I understood this that I began to see myself as an activist.

I AM MANY.

Considering that VTC Tré is emblematic of your progressive arc as an impact-focused creative, what would your protest slogan be?

TS: It would definitely be “I AM MANY” because no one gets far alone.

Despite already having a prolific body of work, especially in the last seven years, Tré only recently emerged from the fundamental act of branding yourself (and creating your logo). It feels like a distillation of your work’s purpose–the why that underpins what you do and a refinement of your voice. As a creative who helps client partners do this daily, what was it like to do it for yourself?

TS: It was the hardest task that I’ve done, and probably ever will do, in my career. Developing a symbol and a wordmark seemed impossible because I see myself as a storyteller more than a designer. It wasn’t until I decided to create a font family inspired by my story that my personal identity came together.

These surgically cut letterforms (stencils) connect to my experiences as a two-time brain tumor survivor and my experiences with lettering, graffiti, political communication (e.g., stencil protest signs), and storytelling.

It also ties to my French heritage (mom’s side). As you may see in Steven Heller and Louise Fili’s Stencil Type book, the French perfected stencil lettering.

These surgically cut letterforms connect to my experiences as a two-time brain tumor survivor and my experiences with lettering, graffiti, political communication (e.g., stencil protest signs), and storytelling.

Lastly, when it comes to my final wordmark, I’ve honored my great-great-great grandmother, who established the farm on which both my studio and home reside, along with my parents’ home and office. When I began renovating the stable turned studio, I came across her purse filled with hundreds of legal documents. My great-great-great grandmother was a strong-willed businesswoman; she ran the farm, a boarding house, and a foster home. She was also the bank of the local Black community. I discovered something interesting while looking through these legal documents, but I’ll get to that momentarily.

When I made my first brand identity, way back in my freshman year of college, I found out that the last name, “Seals,” was the occupational name of someone who made wax seals and signet rings. Wax seals were a means of verifying the authenticity of a signature. However, as I looked through these documents of my third great-grandmother, I found out that when wax seals became obsolete on legal documents, the word “SEAL” would be printed in parenthesis or brackets to verify that a signature was authentic. While I didn’t want to isolate my last name in parenthesis or brackets, I italicized my first name so that it acted as a signature.

You mention that your original idea to do Tré came from a desire to tell your story. What are some of your hopes for your future chapters?

TS: At the least, I’d like to make a monospaced version and a rounded version of VTC Tré. Beyond that, I’d like to make an edgier sans-serif version of VTC Tré. Maybe something that highlights my love of [graffiti] tags and their relationship to calligraphy. I have sketches for a slab, but that’s not as important to me as the previously mentioned, at the moment at least.

Led by Ana Laydner, the design team of Henrique Beier, Eduilson Coan, and Fabio Haag found their typeface inspiration in the rhythms of life.

Monolinear and low contrast, Passo is practical and efficient. Passo’s charm is in its routine, checking things off your to-do list. We loved this quote from the design team: “Passo will help you solve challenges without raising existential questions.”

They are opposite but not antagonistic. Passo and Passeio can be combined to reflect the roller coaster that is life.

Fabio Haag, founder of Fabio Haag Type

Passeio has more nuance. It’s softer, with medium contrast and elegant serifs to attract attention. If Passo is about our work lives, Passeio signifies the weekend, traveling somewhere new, spontaneous joy. Passeio is voice to Passo’s efficient precision.

Passo and Passeio share the vertical metric, born from the same construction. Use the typefaces separately or together in conversation.

Both typefaces come in eight weights and two styles, with language support for 290 Latin scripts. To learn more, test, and buy Passo and Passeio, visit www.fabiohaagtype.com.

Fabio Haag Type’s external partners at Valkiria Studio provided images and graphic design.

Alexander Wright and Rodrigo Fuenzalida designed Brinca with Michu Benaim Steiner for In-House Int’l foundry, the type foundry of Austin, TX-based brand consultancy In-House International. It was developed by Rodrigo Fuenzalida at FragType.

Branding—as a concept, how it’s used—is an ever-evolving space, and distinctive type is emerging as a clear expressive advantage.

Michu Benaim Steiner

Brinca started as an experiment to create a single typeface across two opposites—with a practical, everyday neutral in between. We set out to test what could be the future of brand typeface: all-in-one files that integrate tonal range into brand design. The team discovered new possibilities for display-type design.

The studio describes Brinca as a “full-spectrum typeface with emotional range and a dynamic heart.” Named after the Spanish word for ‘jump,’ Brinca spans from tightly coiled springs to bouncy and rotund.

Rodrigo Fuenzalida, who collaborated on the design and developed the typeface, clarifies that while he depended on calibration techniques in its development, the key to Brinca was fine-tuned design transitions. “The value of meticulous design was very clear here. Setting up the characters to morph between such different states resulted in some very, very ugly in-between states. The careful planning of those transitions in the designs—as an animation—was the key technical breakthrough,” said Fuenzalida.

The Brinca family includes six styles: Sans, Regular, two Jagged styles, two Bouncy styles, and a complement of glyphs and Latin diacritics. We were struck by how dynamic and unique each expression is. Can it be used to design an entire library’s worth of book covers? The answer is yes! The studio tried it, but you must take their word for it.

Brand identities will sing with Brinca, but it’s also a perfect expression for packaging, events promotions, merch, product lines, and much more. “Brinca is our most technically ambitious typeface to date, the result of a year’s worth of design and development. In creating it, we envisioned a use case that’s both speculative and within reach right now. Branding—as a concept, how it’s used—is an ever-evolving space, and distinctive type is emerging as a clear expressive advantage. Brands will need to build in structured versatility compatible with AI implementation, and Brinca is an extreme test of that concept,” said designer Michu Benaim Steiner.

Brinca is a highly versatile and variable typeface that makes a statement. The statement is up to you. Check out Brinca here and on MyFonts.

Superscript initially only featured the heavier styles until a colleague, Potch Auacherdkul, pointed out that the typeface should have a thin weight. So, the duo completed the thin and light versions and all the variations you see today. The high-contrast, connected script offers five weights, a sky-scraping x-height, and a dynamic set of ligatures, glyphs, swashes, stylistic flourishes, and more. Superscript is highly versatile, with the ability to shapeshift into elegant, playful, or powerful personas.

Elevate your designs from merely mortal to heroic with Superscript. Cape optional.

Learn more and try it out at Positype.com.

Stuttgart-based designer Julien Fincker spent many hours watching and admiring classic Westerns as a child. He loved the slow camera pans over the desert landscapes, and the characters’ names splayed across the screen in bold slab-serif. One stands out in his memory: Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, with Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, and Jason Robards. Fincker fondly remembers close-up shots of the scowling actors with Ennio Morricone’s atmospheric music swirling in the background.

In case you’re wondering, Grantig is German for grumpy.

Even if his inspiration came from the classics, Fincker didn’t want to draw an “old” typeface. From the beginning, he kept today’s aesthetics and flexibility needs at the forefront of his process. He added deep ink traps, fine details, and modern rounded curves to escape its “old Western mustiness,” as Fincker calls it.

Grantig is a small family of three styles; its expressive nature makes it particularly suitable for font-emphasized headlines, packaging, logos, and advertising.

Why just one style? He thought about drawing a more extensive family. However, he disliked the compromises for the thin and bold variations. Instead, he created an italic styleset for both directions for more variance.

Julien Fincker is a multidisciplinary creative, focusing on type in all dimensions, from designing fonts to woodcutting and printing in his workshop.

Learn more and give Grantig a test drive at julienfincker.com.

Between now and December 11th, you can get Grantig for 60% off at Myfonts.

Fight for Kindness, designed to mark World Kindness Day, celebrated annually on November 13, provides an antidote by highlighting kindness in all its dimensions and forms through typography.

Created by TypeCampus, an inclusive academic project about how the culture of typography can inspire and build a community dialogue, and sponsored by the 20+-year-old Florentine foundry, Zetafonts, Fight for Kindness is now in its second year.

This year’s response has been overwhelming. The team received 300 entries using 11 different scripts and languages created by illustrators and visual artists from around the globe.

The design community is full of visionaries: the typographic messages we receive give substance to values such as mutual trust, courage, inclusiveness, and ethical integrity. Above all, we hope that they will lead us to have faith in a more peaceful future.

Debora Manetti, co-founder of Zetafonts and program director of TypeCampus

View the online poster gallery of this year’s submissions or see exhibited works in person at one of these upcoming shows.

Milan, Italy
NABA Milano Library
November 13 – February 28, 2024
Organized by NABA

Sofia, Bulgaria
Coffee Syndicate
November 2-13
Organized by Studio Komplekt as part of the Melba Festival

Budapest, Hungary
House of Lucie Art Gallery
Opening Event November 7; Exhibition: November 7-13
Organized by Farmani

Rome, Italy
NABA Rome Library
November 13 – December 31
Organized by NABA

(A showing at Junior High Los Angeles ended November 5).

The WoT project, currently in development, is the brainchild of Lisa Huang, a French and Chinese typeface designer specializing in Latin and Hanzi (Chinese) scripts. Her typography expertise comes from her studies at Type@Cooper in New York, Type Paris, and TypeMedia in The Hague.

Huang started Words of Type to disseminate and share typographic knowledge across cultures better and to nurture the global type design community. Working with a team of language experts, illustrators, web designers, photographers, and graphic designers, Huang hopes to bring the Words of Type to life as a valuable and accessible resource for people who work with typography.

Huang also created a custom typeface for WoT. In keeping with the reference theme, Scholar Round is easy to read and digest, and heavily influenced by the rounded typefaces used in school books.

The project launched a Kickstarter campaign (recently ended) but has also found partners in companies and type foundries to help fund the development effort. The online reference’s initial phase will have 200 terms and be available in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, with more languages planned. Check out the Words of Type website to preview what’s to come.

While Huang knows that Words of Type is far from THE only typographic source out there, Huang hopes that WoT becomes a favorite sidekick for typography students and teachers, professional designers, and type enthusiasts.

Learn about Huang’s work on her website or Instagram (@hellolisahuang). To read more about Words of Type, It’s Nice That has a thoughtful interview with Huang about the project.

I love looking for the tension between conflicting ideas. Panel exists because I wanted to play with the idea of ‘constraint vs restraint.’

Panel Mono is the result of his experimentation, and it played a pivotal role in shaping the design that influenced all four styles of the Panel family. To enhance open forms, specific letters like ‘c’ and ‘s’ shed their serifs, creating an ambiguity that allowed for a harmonious relationship between the serif and sans-serif designs. A shared set of glyphs also tie the mono styles together. Introducing italics pushed the fluidity of the forms even further, with cursive influences in the lowercase letters infusing the fonts with liveliness.

Once Mark had dialed in the monospaced designs, it made perfect sense to introduce a proportional set to complete the family. He adjusted key glyphs that often struggle within the constraints of a fixed-width format—letters like ‘M’ and ‘W’ were allowed to breathe. Mark’s goal for the proportional sets was to retain many of the distinctive attributes of the monospaced designs and make adjustments only where necessary.

The complete family now includes four unified styles, offering a versatile collection of 40 fonts. Each style consists of a reliable range of weights, from light to black, and over 500 glyphs covering nearly 200 Latin-based languages, making Panel highly adaptable for various uses. License the Panel family directly from www.pstypelab.com or conveniently activate them through your Adobe Creative Cloud account via AdobeFonts.

London-based design and brand consultancy Greenspace—having designed the original branding for The OWO and The OWO Residences—was tapped to develop the identity for Raffles London. It was a vast project involving seven spaces within the complex: The Spy Bar, The Guards Bar and Lounge, The Drawing Room, Saison, Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London at The OWO, Mauro’s Table, and Pillar Wellbeing.

So, what does all of this have to do with type? Because of the sheer scope of the project, I wondered what it was like to consider the typography for such unique entities within a more prominent brand. Adrian Caddy, founder and CEO of Greenspace, was kind enough to indulge my curiosity.

I imagine the history of The OWO would be overwhelming. What details, stories, and historical inspiration helped you focus your aesthetic? 

When we started working on this project in 2018, the Old War Office building was like a ghost ship. Everything had been stripped out. There was not a single sign or door number remaining; such was the sensitive nature of operations the building housed. As we wandered through miles of corridors, we heard our echoing footsteps and imagined the secrets the walls could give up if they could talk to us. It was exciting and also humbling.

At that time, the senior client was concerned that the words ‘old’, ‘war’, and ‘office’ might not convey the idea of luxury or hospitality. Yet when we talked to people who might like to live in or visit a place like the one envisioned, they told us that it was the authentic story of the place that mattered most. Consequently, we proposed naming the destination ‘The OWO’, using the acronym to be authentic yet abbreviated and renewed. Thankfully, our clients agreed, and we were able to pursue a philosophy that dictated that ‘authenticity trumps luxury’ in our subsequent work.

“The bespoke Grotesk typeface family 1906, (the year of the building’s inauguration) that we designed with Colophon, arose from this thinking; to revive the fonts used in government communication during the early 20th century—that didn’t exist in the digital age and deserved to be revived—for the benefit of place and legacy.”

What links do you look for when choosing or designing typefaces for distinct entities under a brand umbrella? Or is each entity considered on its own merit?

The honest answer is a little bit from column A and column B. We’re aware that we’re working to create a sense of place, where people feel at home, rather than a corporate identity, where proven brand architecture systems might apply.

Working on this project, we were liberated by the themes of each restaurant and bar space and were anchored to the aesthetic of The OWO house brand we had created.

We looked for and created a suite of wordmarks that conveyed the personalities and narratives of each of the spaces and experiences on offer. Then, we juxtaposed them with the 1906 typeface for consistency so that guests and visitors perceive a consistent sense of place.

Can you talk about your inspiration for the bespoke typefaces: 1906 and the type for The Guards Bar? 

For the 1906 typeface, the inspiration came from research into typefaces routinely used in the early 20th century for government communication. Stephenson Blake was the prominent foundry at that time, and they produced a number of Grotesk fonts that can be seen in printed ephemera from the period. Those fonts don’t exist as digital fonts today, especially the letterforms that possess greater character, the ones with more flamboyant terminals and alternate forms.

We drew about 20 or 30 letters and ligatures, like the overlapping capital W used in The OWO wordmark, and proposed a font family to be developed. I’m really happy that we realised this aspect of the project, as it fully underpins the whole notion of authenticity and craftsmanship.

“For The Guards Bar, we knew that we were creating a space that looked directly across Whitehall (the avenue that connects Parliament Square to Trafalgar Square) into the Royal Horse Guards and the guards of the Household Cavalry. With this in mind, we imagined the guards as a squad of six, standing to attention, framed by their arched sentry boxes. This is implied by the letterforms’ exaggerated condensed stance and their subtly curved chamfered edges. The royal red and gold colours are informed by the guards’ uniforms.”

Read more about the history of The OWO.

Learn more about Greenspace.

The 45th annual STA 100 is currently accepting work to be juried by a panel of industry experts and is chaired by Chicago-based typographic artists and educators, Guy Villa and Sharon Oiga.

This year’s jury, includes:

• Scott Boms, a multidisciplinary creative director, print-maker, writer, designer, and technologist
• Nermin Moufti, co-founder of Field of Practice and an Arabic & English type designer
• Jon Sueda, founder of Stripe, specializing in print and exhibition design for art and culture
• Linda Byrne, art director for the Royal Institute of Architects Journal, educator, partner at MacKinnon Byrne.

Entries must have been produced between September 2022 and September 2023.

The deadline to submit is in just under three weeks (October 27th at midnight).

Click here for submission guidelines and to view past winners.

From this research, Jalleau’s Aubusson typeface took shape. 

Aubusson is unique in that it combines precision with a handmade touch. Though it is a monospaced font, it never feels confined. 

Aubusson captures the essence of the grid-like patterns formed by the interwoven threads while infusing a sense of warmth and organic calligraphy-inspired shapes to reflect the artistry of the tapestries.

Jalleau expanded on his initial concept with Light to Black weights in both Roman and Italic styles. Headlines, in the striking Black weight, are exclusively in Roman and not part of the variable font.

Aubusson has an impressive glyph set to accommodate diverse language needs and an added layer of dingbats to add personality to designs. Designers who seek elegance with function will love working with Aubusson. 

Learn more about Aubusson and Black Foundry.

Read more about the Unesco-protected Aubusson tapestry tradition.

Sun Valley’s unique identity includes a flexible mark system including custom typography, an ADA-compliant color system, an iconic lexicon, and expansive grid and layout systems for collateral, marketing, web, and signage.

There are two aspects of the larger Sun Valley project that stand out to us. The first is a custom typeface designed for Decatur Fresh, a new supermarket helping to address the neighborhood’s food desert. The font is translatable into 12 languages, an essential component for accessibility for the community’s rich diversity of cultural backgrounds.

Also central to the identity is a cleverly built non-linguistic visual system. Sun Valley has 29 different spoken languages and many ESL residents, so Wunder Werkz designed tile icons inspired by various heritage motifs – flags, textiles, tiles, and patterns from many cultural groups. The easily recognizable icons appear across the identity. More importantly, the visuals were designed with straightforward usage and construction rules so the community can add to them in the future.

Non-linguistic outcomes were key to success. No matter the origin, art plays a central role in a number of diverse global cultures and we wanted to tap into that to create a common thread between these disparate groups.

Jon Hartman, Partner at Wunder Werkz

Wunder Werkz, the design studio based in Denver and Reykjavik, is known for an eclectic and humanistic mix of hospitality, civic, and real estate/development projects, including A-Frame, spotlighted by the New York Times.

Learn more about the marketplace and custom typeface. And check out the larger Sun Valley identity project, including the non-linguistic visual system.

Learn more about Sun Valley’s history and the context for its redevelopment.

All images courtesy Wunder Werkz.

When designers Aspasia Metania and Kostas Mentzos set out to define a new stylistic mean between two iconic fonts, Helvetica and Comis Sans, they collaborated with AI to help them get there. Embracing AI in their initial design process—they call it “Collaborative Intelligence”—helped them see the possibilities when blending the principle-based functionality of modernism and the fluidity and individualism of postmodern typefaces. The resulting typeface, Meen, is the result of this collaboration.

Kosta explains the team’s process, “We didn’t use AI like usual with prompts; instead, we used images as inputs, even if that’s not typical in type design. The AI participation helped push forward our initial ideas for Meen, but the final result came down to human effort.”

As for the team’s use of AI as a design tool, brand.new embraces AI’s contribution in the brainstorming and idea phase, though Kostas says, “We still believe in taking our time because, in branding and design, ideas need time to mature. As designers, we should focus more on the idea phase and question everything.”

Meen is a flexible typeface that adapts to many applications—coming in 5 weights and 11 styles, with a total of 590 characters that support 52 Latin alphabet languages. Explore Meen at meentype.com. The studio is offering a 15% Early Bird discount until the end of September.

Hubsch’s lead designer, Jonathan Hill, found inspiration from a favorite childhood show, Take Hart, in which the host drew with a chisel tip marker. Jonathan’s sensory memories of using marker pens—the smell and the sound of the marker tip moving across the paper—urged him to experiment with an organic, hand-drawn aesthetic. But, it’s not simply childhood fascinations that informed Jonathan’s creation of Hubsch. He also drew influence from street and graffiti artists who experimented with markers, specifically Keith Haring and Banksy. 

Hubsch may be experimental, but its underlying construction follows simple optical rules. Handwritten forms work in concert within the pixel grid. Hubsch’s curves retain a hand-crafted look rather than being completely rounded. Hubsch is a joy to read on a small scale, while headings pull attention without overwhelming.

The marks made from a chisel tip marker are unapologetic. There is nowhere to hide; you must accept its path and embrace the mistakes.

Jonathan Hill, Lead designer and founder of The Northern Block

The typeface gets its name from a 14th-century printmaker, Martin Schongauer. The master printmaker was known for the grace of his work, and his contemporaries nicknamed him Hübsch Martin (“pretty” Martin). Hubsch reflects that grace through the proportional relationship of the straight edges and curves.

The typeface includes seven weights with obliques, over 600 characters per style, and is available as a variable font. Language support covers Western, Southern, and Central Europe.

Fontworks has shaped Japanese culture for the last thirty years. An impressive ninety-five percent of Japanese television stations use Fontworks’ fonts, and ninety-eight percent of the fonts used by Japan’s top 10 video game makers are from the company’s catalog. The acquisition is Monotype’s first in Japan, representing an increasing global demand for Japanese type design and multiscript typefaces.

We sat down with Akira Kobayashi, Creative Type Director at Monotype and 2022 Type Directors Club Medal winner, to discuss the acquisition and his thoughts on this new era of global type design.

With over 40 years in the industry, what trends are you most excited about in global typography?

Akira Kobayashi (AK): When I joined Linotype GmbH in 2001 as a type director for Latin typefaces, my ability to read and write in Japanese was not questioned at all, let alone to design Japanese types. Now, I’m collaborating with type designers in East Asia to develop Japanese and Chinese fonts. Designers who can work multilingually, particularly in Latin and Asian languages, are very much sought after. That’s one of the most significant changes I have seen, and I’m excited about it.

What’s a great example of English lettering (or other Latin language) in conversation with Japanese?

AK: I happened to pick up this book (Carlyle’s ‘Sartor Resartus’: Five Lectures by Nitobe Inazo) while casually browsing the shelves of a small secondhand bookshop in my hometown in Japan. I still remember my heart beating faster when I opened it – the words in English here are set in Granjon (Linotype, 1928–1931), one of my favourite typefaces. The Japanese and Latin types are successfully integrated without distorting either form. This is a perfect marriage of Japanese and Latin types!

What should designers look for in a culture of increasingly globalized design?

AK: If you visit Japan, you’ll find that many of the important messages in English are quite difficult to read because of inappropriate choice or use of the type. The same thing can be said with information in Japanese found in Western countries. When you design or typeset something written in an unfamiliar language, just ask a person who uses it.

Where do you see the design of Japanese lettering going next? And how does that track with some of the trends you see in Western type?

AK: Just like I joined Linotype in 2001 as a specialist in Latin type design, in the future, there will be more people who are not from Japan designing Japanese fonts.

What does accessibility mean when bringing Western and Eastern lettering systems together? Is there a concern about diluting culture?

AK: Diluting culture? On the contrary. When you have more access to other languages cultures, you’ll have more opportunities to think of your own culture as well as others. That happened to me in 1989 when I went to London for the very first time in my life – I was overwhelmed by the cultural difference between the two countries, and I wanted to know Japanese culture much more than before.

I think ‘diluting’ might happen when a person does not have enough understanding or respect for script which looks exotic to him or her. Unfortunately, it did happen in Japan in the mid-twentieth century, the photocomposition era, when Latin alphabets were reshaped – or deformed – to make them more suitable to Japanese texts.

In general, a Japanese font character set mainly consists of kanas, kanji, and Latin glyphs. Japanese glyphs are designed in almost full size on an em-square, while an average Latin glyph has letters with different heights, e.g., uppercase letters, lowercase letters with ascender or descender, and lowercase letters with no extenders that occupy less than half of the height of the square. Because of such structural differences, Western words tend to look much smaller than Japanese in a mixed composition. The type designers in Japan drew a set of Latin alphabet, usually based on a rehash of a pre-existing design, but with extremely short descenders so that many Western words match the size and the height of Japanese. Most phototype foundries in Japan had to take this solution due to technical limitations, and it has been the de facto standard since then. It has a major disadvantage – the shortened descenders on the g, j, p, q, and y affect the overall appearance of words set in the Latin alphabet, and it makes them less comfortable to read, but they did not pose a major problem because English words rarely appeared in Japanese texts until the 1990s.

When I was assigned to the director of our first new Japanese typeface, Tazugane Gothic, I did not want to follow the ‘standard’ of the phototype era in Japan.

We have seen more and more Western words or names used in Japanese text and have felt the high demand for Japanese fonts equipped with decent Latin glyphs. Since we have a huge library of classic Latin typefaces developed over a long time, it is quite natural for us to start developing new Japanese designs inspired by our existing Western font, which had already stood the test of time. Our solution was to combine scaled-up Latin glyphs that retained their original, legible letterform.

However, this option was not an easy choice either; namely, the size and the baseline of the enlarged Latin had to be calculated to balance text in Japanese and Western words comfortably.

What do you wish designers knew more about Japanese typography? Or non-Western/non-Latin language systems?

AK: In Japan, we use three different scripts: kanji, hiragana, and katakana, all mixed in one sentence, but this is nothing particular to the Japanese typography. In Western countries, we use the Latin alphabet, which is a good mixture of upper- and lowercase letters, italic types, and ‘Arabic’ numerals, which came from the Arabs who adopted the system from India more than a thousand years ago.

The biggest difference is that an East Asian ideograph, namely a Chinese hanzi character, a Korean hanja, or a Japanese kanji, is a word in itself, while in most Western languages, a single letter hardly carries anything meaningful. So, when you pick one good-looking character out of your favourite Asian script, I would recommend asking a person who uses the language and making sure it does not have any negative connotation. Believe me, I have seen many embarrassing mistakes so far.

In your mind, how does type shape culture and vice versa?

AK: Type is a tool of communication. A couple of centuries ago, our writing tools were limited mostly to pens or brushes, and they hugely affected the forms of our letters. In the twenty-first century, we use digital types almost every day to get information or express ourselves. Monotype has been one of the top tool suppliers in the Western world. Now, we have a new series of tools made by Fontworks, which has been creating Japanese typefaces that have become the pinnacle of trends for more than two decades.

It’s fun just to think about the many thousands of ways to combine Latin and Japanese. I believe that out of this will emerge what has the potential to become the culture of a new era.

Brand Brother’s new graphic system is anchored by a bespoke typeface and inspired by the intersection of design and engineering. The Nown typeface features clean edges and repetitive angles that meet at precise points. This modular type system begs for experimentation — join the components in a composition or deconstruct them for more abstraction. An extensive color palette adds yet another layer to the scalability of this striking new identity.

Lead designer: Johan Debit

Confluence is a 4,000+ word prose poem, rendered in a custom cursive font, winding for a mile along the Truckee River, expressing how water shapes and is shaped by all it moves through.

I could use texts along sidewalks and pathways to describe how water shapes landscapes, ecologists study streams as living systems, and stories orient us to the places we’re in.

Todd Gilens

Gilens got the idea for a custom font through historical documents he found at the University of Nevada Special Collections Library. His handwriting muse was Claude Dukes, Federal Water Master for the Truckee watershed (d. 1984). The project went through early trials at Digital Arts Studios in Belfast and with Romanian typesetter, Andrei Ograda.

Using software technology to cut the calligraphy, the lettering will be rendered in bright yellow, slip-resistant material and applied to sidewalks and trails.

Confluence connects people to water’s role in shaping landscapes, celebrates the descriptive power of poetry and science, and supports how public spaces can encourage reflection and dialogue.

The city of Reno will reveal the mile-long installation along the Truckee River this fall. Read more about Confluence at nevadahumanities.org and consider supporting their fundraising effort here.

The Lionesses’ new kit features lettering inspired in part by the original Wembley Stadium’s Art Deco facade and an evolution of the stencil design of Brody’s 2014 men’s kit. Balancing playfulness with much-needed readability, Brody’s new typeface complements the uniform’s textile background. The Nike-engineered fabric incorporates architectural and geometric elements for movement and texture.

It needed to be bold and confident, yet employ some degree of playfulness and invention. Legibility is a key issue, and combining that with a sense of creativity and surprise. We maintained the stencil feel from the original by incorporating a line through the centre of each number, which also introduced a more modular, shape-driven aesthetic

Neville Brody

It’s not the first time typography has played a big role in the World Cup. Read our Type Tuesday interview with Monotype’s Charles Nix on the importance of type at the 2022 Men’s World Cup.

Photos courtesy of Brody Associates and Nike.