The logo uses Swordfish with its alternate script capitals.

Aaltoo Festival is a three-day international event about graphic design, illustration, comics, photography, and self-publishing. The festival is organized by Aaltoo ASP in Cupramontana (AN), Italy. It takes place in the local theater – recently renovated – and offers a wide range of activities like workshops, talks, concerts, exhibitions, wall painting performances, and a market area.

For the visual identity of the third edition, I (Marco Goran Romano) worked as an art director and event curator, and decided to work almost exclusively with typography, thus creating a versatile identity system capable of adapting to multiple applications. To achieve this, I combined two fonts that seem difficult to pair: Swordfish and Sempione Grotesk, both from Cast Type Foundry.

Swordfish is an all-caps geometric sans inspired by the 1920s and 30s avant-garde typefaces and jazz record covers of the 1940–50s; Sempione, instead, is a spanking sans serif family suitable for publishing and advertising that looks great in small and large sizes. Together, they create an interesting contrast that fits perfectly with Aaltoo Festival’s core values of inclusivity and open-mindedness.