Harry Lighton’s debut film, Pillion, makes confident use of Tactic Sans, the sharp-shouldered typeface designed by Richard Miller for Miller Type Foundry. Both the teaser posters and the trailer titles are set in Tactic Sans Extra Extended Ultra, stretched across portraits of Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård.

Alex Joseph designed the album artwork, logo and branding for Lola Young’s album This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway. The cover features a portrait by Sophie Jones, with Lola Young's name set in Windsor Elongated, with added weight. The album title appears discreetly below in Helvetica Bold. The same fonts are used across the vinyl design, album singles, and promotional materials.

[More info on Discogs]

HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Industry, season 1 (2020)

Mickey Down and Konrad Kay’s HBO series Industry makes use of a semibold style of Tusker Grotesk by the British graphic and type designer Lewis McGuffie. The title sequence of the drama series that premiered in 2020 has been created by Peter Anderson. Alternately, the title sequence is replaced during the opening or closing of the episodes by a “distorted” version of the title, which is either superimposed on sequences or plain black background.

The logo of the fictional London investment bank Pierpoint & Co. is set in Century Schoolbook (with a slightly titled e). A purple hoodie bearing the company name became so popular that HBO ended up marketing it, along with other fictive corporate merchandise.

HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Industry, season 2 (2022)

HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Industry, season 3 (2024)

Source: www.peterandersonstudio.co.uk HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.peterandersonstudio.co.uk HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.peterandersonstudio.co.uk HBO. License: All Rights Reserved.

Design by Gravillis

Luca Guadagnino’s romantic sports drama Challengers makes extensive use of Rockwell for its 1980s-style movie poster and further promotional material.

Design by BLT Communications. The IMAX logo uses Microgramma Bold Extended.

Poster with the track list of the Challengers soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

A graphic track list released for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album alternates between Resistenza’s handwritten uppercase Sandwich Marker and Linotype’s Anzeigen-Grotesk. Beyonce name is set in Rise Bold, with squeezed letterforms. Tri Kuncoro’s slab serif is similar to the one used on the ribbon worn by Beyoncé on the album’s front cover.

[More info on Discogs]

There are several posters for Charlotte Wells’ debut film Aftersun. They may be classified based on the fonts in use. Mubi – the UK distributor of the film – favors an unidentified Helvetica version (possibly Nimbus Sans Bold with modifications [edit: it’s AG Book, see comments) for a cropped low-caps title of the movie on its folded poster. A24 – the US distributor – makes use of Avenir Next for an all-caps title.

A third version of the poster employs Base Monospace, which is also used for the opening credits and the title sequence of Aftersun. The latter has been designed by Version Industries (Caspar Newbolt and Josiah Newbolt) on very short notice, according to their website's blog. The typeface was chosen in discussion with Charlotte Wells.

Avenir Next, Gill Sans and Univers Ultra Condensed

Base Monospace

In Rainbows, 2007 [More info on Discogs]

Radiohead's In Rainbows album artwork was created and designed by their long-time collaborator Stanley Donwood. It was released in October 2007 and makes all-caps use of Transport, a font designed for road signs in the UK, later digitised by URW Type Foundry. The artwork is co-credited to Dr Tchok, a pseudonym used by Thom Yorke.

For In Rainbows Disk 2, released one year later, again Transport has been in use. This time in use as bold, instead of medium style.

In Rainbows Disk 2, 2008 [More info on Discogs]

Hideous Bastard is the debut solo album of Oliver Sim, best known as songwriter, bassist, and vocalist of The xx. The album cover was designed by Vasilis Marmatakis. The Greek graphic designer is well known for his minimalist posters for Yorgos Lanthimos’ movies. In this horrific artwork, Sim’s face is “slashed” by the letters that make up his name and that of the album.

The photography is by Casper Sejersen. Art direction by Sarah-Jayne Todd, creative direction by Rana Toofanian. The album was released by Young.

[More info on Discogs]

The new Nexflix mini-series by Ryan Murphy (also known for The Politician) celebrates the life of American fashion designer Roy Halston Frowick. The title sequences and closing credits make use of Eurostile Extended, just like the original Halston brand logo.

Imperium cover and spine.

Modern Temperament (Oliver Klimpel and Till Sperrle) developed a new concept for the paperback reissue of all novels and travel writings by Swiss author Christian Kracht at the German publisher Fischer Taschenbuch.

The book series prominently features a bespoke typeface designed by Aurelia Markwalder, with art direction from Modern Temperament. New Asmyth references a typeface design by G. Evans, originally issued by Mecanorma as Asmyth in 1981.

The new cover designs feature the old emblem of the Frankfurt-based publishing house, created by Wolf Dieter Zimmermann.

Imperium cover.

Imperium title page.

Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten.

Faserland.

Ferien für immer.

Der gelbe Bleistift (travel writing).

1979.

New Wave.

The book jacket of Christian Krachts’s novel Eurotrash is designed by the Swedish graphic designer Håkan Liljemärker. It overlays Karien Deroo’s painting Man with cherries with the title of the book. The latter, and the name of the Swiss writer, make use of ITC Galliard.

About Death II, 5. 1998–2002/2005.

Swiss painter Rémy Zaugg (1943–2005) is well-known for the text images he made from the second half of the 1980s until his death, assisted by his wife, Michèle Zaugg-Röthlisberger. The screen-printed words or phrases are composed in Adrian Frutiger’s Univers 85.

Un Lieu, from the “Notes, Études” series, 1985–88.

Die Gründung die Begründung der Grund (für ein Bild) die Grundierung, 1986/87.

Schau, Du bist blind, 1991.

Schau, ich bin blind, schau, 1997.

About Blindness Nr. 18, 1998/99.

About Blindness Nr. 23, 1998/99.

Neue Bilder 48d, Ich, ich sehe Dich, 1998.

Look/I am/Blind/Look (Nr 16), 1998/99.

De la cécité, No 31, 1994–2001.

GRAUW / BEELD / BLIND, 1996. Aquatint edition of a mural.

“Grauw Beeld Blind by Rémy Zaugg was painted as a mural on this building for the travaux publique project in 1996. Textual works of art have been created throughout the city for this exhibition of the van Abbe museum and Peninsula foundation.”

Aber ich die Welt ich sehe Dich, 1994.

Not Here, 1995.

Two paintings from the series I, myself, 2002/03 “comprising 18 pale grey text-paintings in different sizes”.

View from the exhibition of the I, myself series at Galerie Nordenhake.

The book jacket of Ocean Vuong’s debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is designed by Darren Haggar, the art director of Penguin Press, New York. It overlays a close-cropped black-and-white photograph by Sam Contis (Embrace, 2015) with the title of the book. The latter, and the name of the Vietnamese-American writer, make use of Perpetua.

Sofia Coppola’s comedy On The Rocks makes use of what appears to be a digital version of Old Style Bold for its key art. The trailer and movie credits use the similar ITC Tiffany, which also appears for the smaller type on the poster.

In 1996 the Autonomous Parisian Transportation Administration (RATP) adopted the custom typeface Parisine. The development of the typeface family was part of the general effort – with Yo Kaminagai as a head of design – to unify the sign system of the Parisian metro, bus and regional express network which until then made use of different typefaces. An initial choice to rely on Neue Helvetica created disarray due to the font’s variations and difficulties to include longer station names (e.g. “Iéna Champs-Élysées – Clemenceau”, as opposed to “Iéna”).

Consequently, French type designer Jean François Porchez was commissioned to create a typeface that would be more “economical” in width. As described by Porchez in his Gazette, Parisine was:

designed from Helvetica Bold, condensed at 90%. Parisine is intentionally more open to counteract the reduction of the areas of the counters due to condensing. Its forms are softer and more round, horizontal parts are slightly heavier, optically, to compensate for the verticality accentuated by the slight narrowness of Parisine.

In August 2020 the Paris In collective raised awareness that the emblematic typography is threatened by the introduction of a different system used by Île-de-France Mobilités, the entity controlling the different transport companies of the Paris region. Their explicatory video warns of the beginning of what may be an increasing “contamination” of the standards.

[Editor’s note: Parisine was introduced in RATP’s communications in a decentralized way, and the family grew with needs and applications; see comments.]

Overview of the M4 metro line. Station names are set on an angle.

Diagram of the metro, RER, bus, and tramway lines.

Trilingual tourist map (2017) with info in French, English, and Spanish, designed by Be Dandy using Parisine’s narrow and compressed widths.

Strasbourg Saint-Denis station, July 2019.

July 16, 2018. One day after France won the Russia 2018 World Cup final football match, six metro stations were temporarily renamed. the Saint-Paul station was changed into Saint-Paul Pogba, and the Champs-Élysees station honoured the coach of the French football team, Didier Deschamps.

Sign post outside Pompadour station, 2019.

April 2020. Entry of the Plaisance Hôpital Saint-Joseph station, showing both Parisine and the famous art nouveau Paris metro signs.

RATP website, using Parisine and the same color scheme as used for the RATP signage.

Saint-Paul station fridge magnet, from the RATP merchandise shop.

Derek Cianfrance’s HBO series I Know This Much Is True makes use of a bold, italic version of Linotype Didot. The opening title sequences for the limited series starring Mark Ruffalo have been created by Chris Rubino. For them, Linotype Didot is overlayed to a calligraphy font, Arethia, echoing the dissimilarities of the two identical twin brothers – one suffers from paranoid schizophrenia – the series is centred around.

From 2008 to 2018, fashion label Céline used a custom typeface named Céline for all typography. The typeface was commissioned by Studio Peter Miles, coinciding with the instalment of Phoebe Philo as their new creative director. Miles asked Hannes Famira to draw a type family based on Semplicità, designed by Alessandro Butti for Nebiolo in 1930. On his website, Famira writes:

Following an initial conversation Peter sent me a number of scans of the original metal type specimens pages. While the resolution was great for the entire specimens page, when zoomed in to the individual character it turned out to be quite course for the intended purpose. But after some initial bellyaching I quickly realized how fortunate I was that there were no higher resolution scans available as this provided me with some considerable room for interpretation. After all, the translation from the original to the revival is where the fun lies.

The Céline typeface comes in four weights with matching italics, plus a Medium Condensed style. As the weight contrast in Semplicità between Light and Bold was quite large, an intermediate Semibold was drawn, making the Medium the only interpolated style of the series. The Céline logo is based on the Medium, with a tad weight added and minor adjustments: see for example the capital N in the typeface, which is a bit wider than the same character in the logo.

In January 2018 Hedi Slimane was appointed artistic and creative director of Céline. In the run-up of Slimane’s first collection, a rebrand was revealed that included a new logo with modified shapes, tighter spacing and the removal of the accent from the name. Rebrandings including minimal logotype redesigns are not rare in fashion. Slimane himself may have kicked off the current sans mania, with the change of the (Yves) Saint Laurent identity, a brand for which he was installed as creative director in 2012.

Céline by Jürgen Teller, summer 2010.

Clothing label on an item from the fall 2011 collection.

The HBO TV series Euphoria, created by Sam Levinson, uses a custom 5-lined logo, based on LL Prismaset Five by Lineto which, in turn, looks at Rudolf Koch's Prisma. In its curves, Lineto chose to adhere to rigid geometry, resulting in interrupted curves in e.g. the countershape of the U. A colour gradient reflecting the often neonish palette that runs throughout the series is superimposed on the logo, echoing the subject of psychoactive substance abuse that is part of Euphoria’s narrative.

Other on-screen or promotional elements privilege the lowercase use of the ultra-thin versions of Neue Haas Grotesk (Christian Schwartz). The soundtrack for Euphoria is created by Labrinth, who uses a customised Motter Ombra by StudioThinktank.

The national campaign launched by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) to inform about the coronavirus and the Covid-19 disease makes large use of Euclid Circular B and Plain Super.

Forever Butt (2014) is “the ultimate compendium of the best and the baddest from BUTT magazine”.

BUTT magazine started in 2001, as a "pocket-size magazine by, for and about homosexuals." For its 29 issues, 3 calendars, 2 books, several parties and website, the periodical made exclusive use of Compacta and American Typewriter, printed on pink paper. Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom, the founders of BUTT, later went on to create the men's fashion magazine Fantastic Man (2005) and its sister publication The Gentlewoman (2010).

Instead of using ITC American Typewriter Italic, the roman style is slanted for emphasis.

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