Since 2010, the AUTO MATIC OPEN has been an annual open air festival for electronic music in Augsburg, Germany. For the 2022 edition, MMW Studios created a black-and-white identity based on patterns and referencing gritty ’90s rave parties visuals. The b&w aesthetics is reminiscent of cheap photocopied flyers.

The typographic choice reinforces the ’90s techno scene references with Eurostile and Forward used in tandem, always in all cap. Both fonts share very square curves, even if Eurostile does it in a way subtler way than Forward with its straight sides. Forward is often used in a dazzling pattern-in/pattern-out way. MMW created a monogram used almost like a logo composed from the three initials, with the A and the M embracing the upper curve of the rotated O.

If you zoom in on the attendants’ wrists, you can see the custom wristbands featuring the fonts.

Jhambo Ink, a boutique publisher in London, brought out a limited edition in 1,000 hand-numbered copies of a double book bringing together Caroll’s Alice's Adventures Under Ground and Alice In Wonderland. Ana Santiago of Index designed the two books joined by their spines in a dos-à-dos binding. The book is richly illustrated by Brazilian artist Zansky.

While the box containing the book is text-less, the covers are exclusively typographic, showcasing Le Murmure in a playful elongated and top-aligned layout. The font is used throughout the book in both its normal shape but also often vertically elongated (without distortions) or horizontally stretched (with distortions). It's accompanied by Viskjø doing a great job for inter-titles in all caps as well as for the text of the stories themselves.

Moksha is a New Zealand-brewed, India-inspired gin brand. Borrowing spices and flavors found in Masala Chai (cinnamon, cloves, cardamom), the gin brand pays tribute to its inspiration through a wordmark pairing the name in both Devenagari and Latin associated with illustrations of a lush jungle.

From a Brand Identity interview with Charlotte Sole, Design Director at Tomorrow:

The wordmark was set in the open-source Le Murmure by Jérémy Landes, using the typeface’s catching beauty. On the bottle, it’s seen flanked by the product name – in Farmacia – and a second wordmark, set in Pancho Devanagari by Indian Type Foundry, which quickly nods to the spirit’s ties to India. Depending on the context, the wordmarks can appear close to each other, and sometimes, are even entangled to create a striking lockup.

On top of the wordmark, Le Murmure is also used across the brand for all titles. These three typefaces are also accompanied by Commuters Sans in all caps for sub-headlines, UI, and introductory paragraphs, and Right Grotesk Wide for all body copy.

When Moksha is only sold in New Zealand (for now), one could ask themself what this Devanagari wordmark is here for besides the obvious answer being exoticism, contributing to the Indian feeling of the brand while only the inspirations behind it are actually linked to the subcontinent.

Illustration by Victoria Garcia, copywriting by Hello Elo, packaging production by Porter, photography by Simeon Patience, and styling by Sam Van Kan.

Africa is/in the Future is a festival that takes place in Brussels since 2016. It’s dedicated to showcasing multidisciplinary productions from African and Afro-descendants artists and creators. For the 2023 edition, the festival invited Laurent Mbaah (a.k.a. Simio, a.k.a. Chimères) to create their communication. He partnered with Elodie Goldberg Jacquemain and Alexandre André to create an identity based on a strong yellow/black/white triad.

The main font used for the communication is Frank Adebiaye's Forward, either in its bolder and wider or thinner and narrower styles. Its sculptural lettershapes led the designers to create illustrative dingbats. Made by pasting parts of glyphs together or overlapping them, they are being used as illustrations for different events.

To accompany Forward, the designers picked Clara Sambot’s DINdong, a font released by the Belgo-French collective Bye Bye Binary and featuring, like all their fonts, special glyphs and ligatures allowing to write in a more gender-inclusive French. The festival made good use of these ligatures across all their publications.

An example of the gender-inclusive ligatures included in the DINdong typeface.

From Wikipedia:

The Settlers (Spanish: Los colonos) is a 2023 revisionist Western drama film directed by Felipe Gálvez Haberle (in his directorial debut), who co-wrote the script with Antonia Girardi in collaboration with Mariano Llinás.

The movie portrays a trio of characters (Segundo, a Chilean mestizo, MacLennan, a Scottish veteran, and Bill, an American mercenary) on an expedition on horseback in 1893 to delimit and reclaim the lands that the State has granted to José Menéndez, a sheep farmer and businessman.

What appears to be an administrative expedition turns into a violent hunt for Onas, the natives of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The Selk'nam genocide lies at the core of the film.

The Settlers had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2023. It competed for Un Certain Regard and Caméra d'Or, and alongside those was honored with the FIPRESCI Prize, becoming the first Chilean production to win that award.

The movie can be watched on Mubi.

The movie features a beautiful and consistent use of a single font, Axel Grotesk, in all caps, across its title screen, end credits and posters. Chilean studio Buena Suerte executed the whole design, using a massive amount of the color red as an obvious nod to the bloody violence at the core of the movie.

View the case study on Buena Suerte’s website.

Joaomglhs is Lisbon designer João Magalhães’ fashion persona / brand. Joaomglhs positions himself as a micro label dropping two collections a year and selling unique hand-made pieces only. He explores and mixes together traditional crafts with new technologies, in a continuous re-invention of the way of building garments.

For the creation of Joaomglhs’ identity, Studio Triple drew a custom wordmark, organic and shape-shifting like the brand’s pieces. The wordmark was later on created as an oversized piece of jewelry / bag accessory by a metal artist. To double down on the organic notes of an identity making an outrageous use of gradients, chrome and glowing effects, as a quote to and oil stain on a puddle, Studio Triple used their own (at this point not yet released) NaN Success Text and Sans families, for what represent their first use ever.

Food Society is a company opening food courts through big French cities. As for now, one has been opened in Lyon and one in Paris, although at least another opening is planned. The food courts house a collection of small stalls ran by already existing restaurants from each city, often offering a smaller and adapted menu than their main venue. Besides their food function, the places also offer a range of cultural events, from DJ sets, concerts, conferences…

Situated in rather commercial neighborhoods (malls) close to big train stations, Food Societies distinguish themselves by a strong interior architecture led by Belgian architect Lionel Jadot, himself inviting many different designers from The Zaventem Ateliers to contribute an eclectic collection of hand-made furniture (seats, lamps, tables…).

The branding was created by AAAAA Atelier in collaboration with Studio Triple for the logo and all typographic aspects. Triple created a two-headed custom type family including 65 titling styles – Poivre – and six text styles – Petit Poivre. The all-caps titling family is set up across a wide range of widths and weights together with outline styles that also span across multiple weights. Combining the outline styles with the plain ones allows for multi-color type-setting. The typeface mixes inspirations from Art Deco and street art in a playful and irreverent way.

The fonts are used for signage and packaging all over the place, painted on ceramic tiles by ceramic artists Mon Colonel & Spit, and part of the distinctive architecture. The identity makes a good use of variable fonts through animated logos and a website randomly flexing all the styles of the fonts when users over titles.

Art Direction by AAAAA Atelier
Ceramic art by Mon Colonel & Spit
Architecture by Lionel Jadot
Pictures by Julia Grüßing, Studio Slurp, Vincent Frances

Digestive

Maple is a Canadian jewelry company specialized in recycled sterling silver, either as such or plated with 14k gold. A distinctive trait of this brand is their recurring use of type as an ornament through the years. The fonts are either embossed (and oxidized) or debossed in the surface of the jewelry, or can even serve as a full 3D object for the base of some pieces, like the M or Freak rings and bracelet. Note that the Freak ring is not a simple extrudation of Cheee but a properly sculpted inflation of the letter shapes.

Among the fonts they used, we can name a few occurrences of Digestive by Jérémy Landes, Cheee by James Edmondson (both released through OH no Type Co.), Victor Moscoso by Keith Bates, Hendrix by David Nalle, Blackmoor by David Quay, Collegiate FLF by Casady & Greene, and at least two more unidentified ones.

Digestive

Digestive

Victor Moscoso

Digestive

Digestive

Cheee

Cheee

Cheee

Cheee

An unidentified slab serif with similarities to City

Hendrix (outlined)

Collegiate

Blackmoor

Unidentified typeface

The Acousmonium de Printemps (Spring Acousmonium) is a two-days festival organized by the Vaagues de Chaleur collective around the atypical instrument that is the Acousmonium. This sound diffusion system consists of at least 16 (originally 80) loudspeakers of differing size and shape, placed in front, around and among the audience. This “loudspeaker orchestra” focuses on sound spacialisation and grain.

For this event, Parisian studio Atelier AAAAA created a pair of heavily illustrated posters. The image treatment uses Stochaster, a rasterizing tool made by Justin Bihan, also a type designer owning the micro-foundry Lettres Simples. Atop of these busy backgrounds, the information is set in Jérémy Landes’ NaN Success Sans together with Lucas Le Bihan and Jean-Baptiste Morizot’s Karrik, both fonts being granted a black outline to differentiate them from the illustration. Success’ organic distortions and the fact that the title is set on a curve doubles down on the in overall very dancing imagery.

Stubs are pre-made strong cocktails, sold in cans. The brand distinguishes itself by the high amount alcohol per can (25% alc. by vol) and by the small format of its cans.

To convey this idea of a strong drink in a small receptacle, Best Studio created a very strong and colorful design composed of overlapped fonts with strong colors and the information added as a golden overlay. Although the logo is set in NaN Jaune Maxi Black, the name of the brand also appears as a pattern background on every can, this time set in Digestive, both typefaces designed by Jérémy Landes and sold in their earlier stages through Future Fonts where they might have been ordered around the same time. A lighter weight of Jaune Maxi is used to set the cocktail names and their description, while Lucas Sharp’s Sharp Sans serves the body copy.

My Neighbor K : The Peculiar Garden (나의 이웃집 K씨: 기묘한 그 정원) is an exhibition that took place at Elephantspace (엘리펀트스페이스), Seoul, South Korea, between the 19th and the 23rd of October 2022. It is the first project presented by Qootechniq (Unknown Kim & Handiii) In collaboration with PCS. It featured a film by Qootechniq, an installation by PCS, a sound installation by Unknown Kim. The identity was designed by Handiii with Dahseul Jung.

This is a project where graphic design and the communication around an art project and the art itself blends. Furthermore, it’s worth noting that Handiii plays here both roles of exhibited artist and of graphic designer of the poster and communication tools for the exhibition. Adopting a playful approach to bi-scriptuality, the communication sports the soft open-source font Song Myung for the Korean part and NaN Success Text for the English. Both fonts express calligraphic or organic features in different ways, allowing to cohabit while expressing very opposite personalities.

2020 certificate

Words from the agency &Walsh:

The Vilcek Prize for Excellence, introduced in 2019, is awarded to immigrants who have had a significant impact on both American society and world culture as well as individuals who are dedicated champions of immigrant causes.

We designed the official Prize for Excellence award given to each year’s winner. We used detailed illustrations to create surreal combinations of impactful historical contributions to humanity in the realms of math, science & art.

The certificate comes in an embossed box, for a lace effect due to the highly ornamental style of the illustration.

The title of the prize as well as the awardee’s name and the field are set in Digestive, corroborating the almost psychedelic aspect of the mandala-like illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani. Accompanying text is in ITC Tiepolo.

Creative Direction: Jessica Walsh*
Strategy: Jessica Walsh
Production: Stephanie Halovanic
Design: Matteo Giuseppe Pani and Sanchit Sawaria
Illustration: Matteo Giuseppe Pani

* The creative/art direction for the first edition from 2019 was still done by Jessica Walsh & Stefan Sagmeister at Sagmeister & Walsh.

2021 certificate

2019 certificate

2019 certificate

2019 certificate

Archives des luttes des femmes en Algérie (“Archives of women's struggles in Algeria”) is a collective lead by Awel Haouati, Lydia Saïdi and Saadia Gacem, and an independent project whose objective is to shed light on the history of the Algerian women’s movement since 1962, which has long been marginalized and unknown. Through the construction of an open access digital archive, the project aims to make accessible a set of written, printed and visual materials produced within the framework of Algerian women's organizations and collectives, which are today preserved by women who have participated in such mobilizations.

Launched in March 2019 in the context of the hirak (popular uprising in Algeria), the project emerged from the observation that only few resources about the history of struggles in independent Algeria exist today, and even less when it comes to those led by women for emancipation and equal rights. The material “traces” of their actions and mobilizations remain inaccessible and little known to the new generations.

In this publication, made in the framework of documenta fifteen, they relate a particularly dense and prolific part of the history of the Algerian feminist movement, from 1988 to 1993. In 1989, a brief democratic opening enabled many women's collectives and organizations to exist legally and more freely than at the time of the single party. The publication gathers photographs and documents - some of which were fundamental in the evolution of the movement - from this period of intense political and militant activity.

The publication, design by Studio Akakir, is trilingual, featuring its text in Arabic, French and English languages. The Arabic texts are set in Amiri by Alif Type for the titles and 29LT Zarid Serif by 29LT for the running text. NaN Success Text and Sans by NaN are used for French and English titles, while Bitter by Huerta Tipográfica carries captions and running text.

From a typographic point of view, this publication (and this archive in general) might be as interesting for its layout as it is for its archived material showing, among other things, graphic material (journals, political tracts, posters, bulletins…) produced in Algeria between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s.

A note: During documenta fifteen Kassel, this project (and another art piece, not linked here) brought the topic of antisemitism in the conversation through the exhibition of an issue of the Algerian feminist magazine Présence de femmes from 1988. It focuses on Palestine. The article features illustrations by Burhan Karkoutly and Naji Al-Ali criticizing the Israeli army. Those illustrations have been judged as antisemitic by a part of the audience (source: wikipedia.fr). Here is the answer given by the collective.

For more information, see the project’s website and the book’s page.

For a youth summer program called Jugend Frei Raum (“Youth Free Space”) LWZ Studio created some graphics promoting those spaces where young people can express themselves freely. They worked with the concept of taking up some (public) space through typography, using a NaN Hyena Black in its three flavors, with flat, concave and convex terminals for most of the identity.

Dinamo’s Favorit offers a welcome contrast in its lighter weight and is used for subheadings and captions.

To view the full range of inflating animations created by LWZ, visit their case study.

The website of art director Thierry François sports a delicate association of a lighter weight of Commercial Type’s Canela contrasting with Reymund Schröder’s NaN Hyena Noon Black. This association is based on an extreme contrast in weight, contrast, and serif presence between the two typefaces, somewhat only brought together by their use at the same size and color in an all-caps paragraph. We could add that Hyena’s humanist skeleton increases its kinship with Canela.

Colophon’s Google font DM Sans serves for body copy. It is striking in a mixed use of both libre and non-libre fonts; this practice is maybe not so uncommon on the web anymore but was more rare a few years ago when one was either a ferocious enemy of open-source fonts or a stranger to licensing proprietary fonts.

For the latest LP of Belgian Metal musician Marc De Backer (aka MNGLT or Mongolito), Atelier AAAAA used a collection of typefaces mixed together in a surprising harmony, accentuated by the monochromatic black printing on a linen cover.

MNGLT’s logo is set in a fake-Hebrew typeface, DS Sholom, which he has been using since at least his 2012 album Acedia. The LP’s title, Pure, as well as most information is set in multiple widths of Jérémy Landes' NaN Success Titling, while smaller credits show both Julien Priez' Boogy Brut and Boogy Brut Wild Black, both chosen for legibility reasons, albeit opposite ones. Overall, a very calligraphic energy leaks out this collection of four different type families.

It can be noted that Priez and Landes are former classmates of the Estienne type design program in Paris.

Cover painting by Valère Bernard, 1898. Photo by Sarah C. Artwork by Atelier AAAAA. Sikscreen by La Défaite.

[More info on Discogs]

NaN Success’ first Use, a few months before its official release at NaN, was for the third LP of Berlin-based music artist Helmut called My Interstellar Love Life. The design plays at the intersection of the shiny artworks featuring luscious slugs, the intense colorimetry, organic shapes of Success Titling and glossy paper finish.

We can see some differences between this early version of Success Titling and the one later released at NaN, among the ones the tear-drop shape for the ascenderon the f – which was replaced with a simpler and sharper wedge in the final version.

NaN Jaune Mini was used for credits and small-sized copy.

A very early version of NaN Success Text is used in all caps for the lyrics and end credits in the music video of the track called “Enough”.

Artwork by Lucia Barlanga, typography by Studio Triple, the designers of Success and Jaune.

single record artwork for “Killing”

For their 30th anniversary edition, the Leigh Folk Festival (UK) unveiled a new identity. The new logo features Luke Prowse’s NaN Fiasco and a pictogram of a seagull, the infamous trash-eater festival’s favourite animal.

But it's becoming even more interesting in the festival communication when a few letters of Fiasco Bold are randomly replaced by their counterparts in Mark Caneso’s Campaign Slab. NaN Fiasco is already an accident-driven typeface packed with consistently designed inconsistencies so this could almost go unnoticed at first if not for the massive serifs of Campaign Slab. This original twist doubles down on the already playful NaN Fiasco and leaves no doubt regarding the benevolent spirit this festival lives in.

Jonny Pinhorn’s Poppins, in its Light weight, serves as a contrast conveyor and is used for secondary information and longer texts, on printed and digital material.

Frow is a new mobile app / social media account dedicated to vinyl collections and live music performances.

Their identity, initiated by Studio Triple but deployed by Frow's in-house team who took care of designing the website and app, shows ATF Alternate Gothic (in all caps) for most titles For all the heavy lifting of running text and UI it’s supported by NaN Holo, both in its proportional and mono versions, depending of context. The typographic contrast is expressed in its simplest way: the compactness of Alternate Gothic differs from Holo's more loose and comfortable rhythm, characterized by its wider-than-normal capital.

The identity balances between its voluntary restrained spirit (limited color palette of off black and greens, solid typographic choices), with a light touch of late psychedelic vibes, from the custom drawn lettering of their logo to the more expressive sticker language deployed on their social channels.

For the design of the latest EP of Chichester’s Traams, Stewart Amstrong chose a grunge approach, mixing together his own illustrations with graphic elements inherited from Great Britain’s late ’70s early ’80s underground CB radio (counter-)culture.

On top of a generous amount of hand-drawn letterings, the typography deploys Luke Prowse’s NaN Holo for most textual contents. Amstrong, to double down on the photocopy æsthetics inherited from its collage, applies a roughening effect/texture on the text, blending it smoothly with the other graphical elements.

Art Direction: Stewart Armstrong & TRAAMS
Design & illustration: Stewart Armstrong
Additional illustration: Daniel David Freeman & Beth Longmore
Cover image: Emily by Scarlett Platel
Band photography: Steve Gullick

The artwork contains elements originally published in Eyeball Cards: The Art of British Radio Culture by William Hogan & David Titlow.