Located in Western Berlin in quiet surroundings with the Tiergarten park on one side and the Berlin Zoo on the other is a five-star design hotel with a Danish name: Das Stue – The Living Room.

Why Danish, why living room? It’s simple – the building was constructed in the 1930s as Denmark’s embassy and later became its Berlin consulate. Several years ago it was architecturally extended and upgraded as a hotel – an urban retreat combining luxury and homeliness. Quite a potpourri of prominent names is connected with the locality: Johann Schaudt, architect of the historical building; the Axthelm architectural practice responsible for its contemporary annex; celebrated Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola responsible for the interiors; Catalan chef Paco Pérez heading Das Stue’s Michelin-starred restaurant Cinco, and last but not least: FF Mister K – the Kafka handwriting font responsible for the hotel and restaurant logos.

Since it first opended its doors in late 2012 Das Stue has been a singular success story. The melange of Third Reich classicism, the new minimalist building wing, sleek but cosy guestrooms, 20-course Mediterranean meals, ostriches parading in front of the windows and Franz Kafka’s very unsleek handwriting – seems to fit perfectly to the zeitgeist of today’s Berlin. – A long list of enthusiastic reviews and awards confirms it.

Trade Gothic Extended, stylishly set in all caps, and Georgia support Mister K on Cinco’s menus …

Julieta Ulanovsky’s sans serif Montserrat and system font Times New Roman on Das Stue’s virtual presence are a surprisingly modest choice for “Berlin’s first luxury boutique hotel”. See them in combination here.

For music events Mister K is joined by Impact and a condensed DIN-like grotesque.

FF Mister K Icing (still to be approved by the FontFont Type Board)

A bit of Stue made it to K-designer Julia Sysmäläinen’s balcony.

December 6th is special: It’s Finland’s birthday, this year the 99th. And it’s St. Nicholas Day in most of the rest of Europe. St. Nicholas’ big advantage over Santa Claus is that he can be nasty. He even has a special assistant to carry out the dirty work – Ruprecht or Krampus – depending on where you live. The assistant may use a stick, throw ashes or even put you in a sack if your CV is bad. On the other hand, if you have a good CV one of your boots might get filled with sweets over night. Any boot will do, of course the bigger the better. But in Switzerland it should definitely be a Walder boot, because with Walder boots Ruprecht and Krampus are out of the game, and instead friendly Mister K Informal und reliable Futura are in the game.

The two typefaces are playing the Walder game for two years now and are finding the right tone of voice especially in the children’s footwear collection. But Leo Burnett Zurich, who is in charge of the brand identity, doesn’t hesitate to apply the K-Informal look quite heavily also to more exclusive and expensive shoeware products.

Usually K Informal is playing the lead role and Futura taking care of down to earth facts like the pricing.

But at times the responsibilities are more equally distributed.

A bit of a risk – at Walder’s St. Nicholas might even put ice cream in your boots …

Not designed for a Berlin living room, but now hanging there: a thank you poster from Leo Burnett Zurich for Mister K’s designer Julia Sysmäläinen.

Corporate Design is boss: K Informal jumps in even for Mr. Walder’s signature.

It’s been some time since I last entered the country at HEL – Helsinki airport. And unfortunately I don’t really have time to admire all the new achievements there since I have to catch a train to the east. My schedule is tight.

After the baggage claim I am as usually surrounded by a crowd of meeters awaiting their relatives & friends. Not expecting anyone waiting for me there I want to elegantly and swiftly elbow my way out. But wait a second: There is a friend there, high above all the others. It’s the Kafka handwriting font Mister K greeting everybody with a loveable “Moi Helsinki” (Hi Helsinki). Instantly my priorities change. It will have to be a later train. I absolutely must check out the first bar in Finland using Mister K as its keynote speaker!

They give you a really homely welcome here. Besides friendly typefaces and funny illustrations they have a relaxed Scandinavian interior – and the seductive aroma of freshly ground coffee together with that of korvapuusti cinnamon rolls. It doesn’t take long that I get the feeling you might not only miss trains but also planes here.

But who is Mister K’s partner telling amusing anecdotes on the beer coasters and not so amusing prices in the menu? It is Belta Bold, a trendy font of handwritten caps by Antipixel from Buenos Aires. Probably nobody would have combined typefaces like this a few years ago. But the times they are a-changin’, and there is enough contrast between the two of them to make a good Finnish–Argentinean pair. – And would anyone miss grotesques or antiquas in a place like this anyway?

I’m sure to be here more often in future – doing less photographing – and letting more coasters wander into my pockets. With more than 8 € for a beer I guess that’s justified – just as the 5-star rating Moi Helsinki got by its visitors.

A look at the technical side of Moi.

The menu – gold on cardboard.

Photo: Tuomo Metso. License: All Rights Reserved.

In 1891, Dr. August Oetker founded a company for the production of baking soda, today one of Germany’s largest family enterprises. Oetker didn’t invent baking soda – the formula came from the United States – but he was an expert in its marketing. From the beginning, he emphasized an image of healthyness and quality. By placing ads in practically all German daily newspapers of the time he systematically popularized his “Dr. Oetker Bakin” sold in handy 10 gram packages – just enough for one pound of flour. Additionally, Oetker aquired a printing workshop and published “Dr. Oetker Baking Books” with recipes requiring the new powder. Still today an image of superior quality sticks to Dr. Oetker baking products – and is reflected in their price.

Photo: Tuomo Metso. License: All Rights Reserved.

This year, Dr. Oetker joined forces with Dr. – err – Mister K and enriched German grocery stores with a special Christmas series of baking mixtures in eye-catching green and blue packages. It’s Mister K Informal that is sprawled out almost sloppily over Coconut Macaroons, Winter Muffins, Vanilla Crescents & Co. Meanwhile the Futura family, one of Dr. Oetker’s workhorses, is busy with grams of butter, eggs, whipcream, calories and temperatures …

Photo: Tuomo Metso. License: All Rights Reserved.

Prominently placed on the top of the packages, the familiar Dr. Oetker logo in Helvetica Condensed Heavy with silhouette head (“a bright head is one that uses Dr. Oetker’s baking powder”) restores authority to the somewhat hyper-active mix. Not an absolute hit, but it shouts loud when all eight green and blue boxes are towering in the bakery products aisle.

Photo: Tuomo Metso. License: All Rights Reserved.

Being a Mister K fan, this was incentive enough for me to take home four of the mixes and try them with my community. Three were unanimously rejected – too sweet, too amarettoesque, too dry. But one of them was a winner: Bratapfelkuchen.

Photo: Tuomo Metso. License: All Rights Reserved.

It’s the middle of December now, and I’m hunting through the stores and supermarkets of the former Westgerman capital city Bonn, trying to get hold of Dr. Oetker’s Bratapfelkuchen again: But it’s gone! The complete Dr. Oetker Christmas series disappeared – sold out, they tell me – so sorry, a limited edition.

Photos Tuomo Metso

In case someone missed it: food is trending – and so is artwork with food and about food. Here is a masterpiece …

The Delicious / A Companion to New Food Culture by Gestalten features both pioneer and acclaimed chefs from around the world and their cooking art. Inside is a spacious layout full bodied with aromas, tasteful photography and a delicious mix of typefaces notoriously hard to read:
Neoclassicist Didot Elder for running texts, and for chapter headings Fette Bauersche Antiqua – even more extreme in its contrast – combined with Emily In White, a digital interpretation of Emily Dickinson’s handwriting – often described as resembling bird tracks. Thank God there is also Gill Sans for the running titles – at least they are easy to read.

Great food should not be easy to eat. And a great book does not have to be easy to read.

The two FontFonts play their role well, maybe a bit too workmanlike. They make a quirky but friendly handwriting–humanist sans pair and create an up-to-date feeling distinct from the more traditional competitors around.

Walking through the streets of Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg I met two old FontFont friends: Yanone’s FF Kava and Julia Sysmäläinen’s Kafka font FF Mister K. They hold a key position in the identity of Cornelia Sommers Naturheilpraxis – a small & pricy naturopathy practice for children and adults. With its population of baby booming ex-bohemians Prenzlauer Berg is an ideal environment for this kind of enterprise.

The division of labor is conventional: As tested often before, the script font – Mister K – takes care of the logo and headlines and the sans – Kava – offers easily digestible info text. In all a pleasant appearance – Franz Kafka, a great believer in natural therapy, would not have objected.

“Food Made by Mothers” is the brand message of Saarioinen, a convenience food manufacturer from Central Finland. In the course of 60 years the company grew from a small lakeside manor to one of Finland's major food makers. It has production sites in six different parts of the country. While various international food products are offered, orientation on homemade-ness and home country-ness (“kotimainen”) and traditional Finnish food culture have always been major feature. On the occasion of the 60th aniversary of Saarioinen Espoo-based agency Remes & Packart did a redesign for the packaging which stresses the point.

The new packaging design follows a clear concept with simple structure and the main typographic elements positioned on a compact lable area. This makes navigation easy and leaves ample space for illustration on the surroundings. An important brand feature is the use of Finnish script font ALS SyysScript (“Script of Autumn”) in brightly colored headlines paired with elegant slab serif PMN Caecilia for content information and Swedish translations. As a rule, the production site within Finland and the Finnish quality logo are placed prominently and thus confirm the brand message.

“Spinach soup prepared with Finnish spinach” and “Rice mash – A new recipe, still more tasty than before” – Finns love their traditional food.

Even in Finland somewhat exotic: Smoked reindeer meat–cheese soup.

“They Call me Emma, Plain Emma.”

Emma, Plain Emma is an art object by Rowena Dunlap Burke (poetry) and Eric Hovermale (imagery) installed at the Newport Art Museum in Newport, Rhode Island.
Its protagonist is Emma Helmine Caroline Josephine Wagner (1893–1974) who is depicted in a life-size photograph. Superimposed is a poem written like an autobiography and set in Emily In White, a typeface based on the handwriting of Emily Dickinson. The unique balance between verbal, typographic and photographic elements in this artwork is made perfect by translucent background material and soft backlighting.

“My father is a tailor and my mother is a dressmaker. / I excel at both trades.”

“And though I am plain, I make beautiful things.”

Copyright: Кантри. Стиль и образ жизни
Art-direction: Anastasia Grigoryeva

The Moscow based magazine Кантри. Стиль и образ жизни (Country. Style & Lifestyle) brings together Helios (Alexey Kustov, Sergey Shanovich/TypeMarket), Georgia (Matthew Carter/Microsoft) and ALS Syysscript (Julia Sysmäläinen/Art. Lebedev Studio).

While combining Microsoft’s ubiquitous “system transitional” with a Cyrillic Helvetica interpretation in classical role allocation is a safe but not very daring solution (particularly for a lifestyle magazine), including ALS Syysscript adds spice and leads to quite a unique type trio.

ALS Syysscript is used multifunctionally – either in large heads as an image-maker, together with Helios or Georgia, or in small running titles and caption texts.

Released two years ago, ALS Syysscript has become Art. Lebedev Studio’s most successful typeface. These aspects might have contributed to this:
‧ a casual expression of strong personality,
‧ wide language support unusual for a script font (WE, CE, extended Cyrillic),
‧ the versatility of Syysscript/Syysscript Eco, the latter a simplified version with shortened extenders designated for texts in small sizes.

Layout of an opening-spread

Copyright: Кантри. Стиль и образ жизни
Art-direction: Anastasia Grigoryeva

Copyright: Кантри. Стиль и образ жизни
Art-direction: Anastasia Grigoryeva

Running titles

Copyright: Кантри. Стиль и образ жизни
Art-direction: Anastasia Grigoryeva

Captions, info texts

Copyright: Кантри. Стиль и образ жизни
Art-direction: Anastasia Grigoryeva

Copyright: Кантри. Стиль и образ жизни
Art-direction: Anastasia Grigoryeva

Progam cover: Emily In White and FF Mark

Farewell event for the executive director of the American Academy in Berlin:
Invitation folder and event program.

Groundplan, labeling: Emily In White

Program layout: FF Mark

Invitation detail: FF Mark, Emily In White on transparency

Invitation in folder

Invitation detail