The Starry Light lamp is a unique decorative object, accompanied by a complex visual identity, characterised by a dynamic logotype system and fully harmonised with the product design. The basic idea of the logos was inspired by the lines that connect the star constellations — which define the lamp design — and since the constellations inside the lampshades vary in the individual pieces, the logos reflect this diversity. A remarkable element of the visual design is the variability of the size and rhythm of the points, which is also a basic characteristic of the lamps. The numerous variations are held together by an elegant appearance virtually stripped to extremes.

I chose Acto as the main typeface because of its eleven weights with matching italics, because variability was required for the Starry Light booklets, stamps, packaging etcetera. It is supported by a tagline using all lowercase Jacques & Gilles, choosen because of the easy sketching and beautiful feminine style. In the star maps, the constellation names are set with Archer. In my mind Archer’s design is equal to star constellations, maybe that is the reason why it is my favorite font. The “A” of the logo was custom made, it does not originate from a particular typeface.

Csaba Villányi

“Mah Ze Dahr is a bakery founded by chef Umber Ahmad that sells heavenly culinary concoctions like cheesecake, brioche doughnuts, and dark chocolate explosion cookies. Chef Ahmad was discovered by Tom Colicchio, who mentored and encouraged her to start her own business and focus on baked goods. We built Mah Ze Dahr’s original e-commerce site in 2012, and just launched a shiny new design and upgraded e-commerce platform in anticipation of their first brick-and-mortar store opening in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

We wanted the site to feel as rich and sensory as chef Ahmad's baked goods, so we started by highlighting Vanessa Rees’ mouth-watering photos. Because the photography is so striking, we mirrored the clean aesthetic with the website design as a whole, even extending it to the uniquely modern way we built the site.” — W&Co.

Franzhans 06 is an agency that organizes concerts and other cultural events in and around Berlin. Their posters can be seen in many subway stations. While they are not exactly award-winning material — fragmented, with artwork of mixed quality, and lacking any common theme, typographically or otherwise — I add them here because they feature a number of odd typeface choices.

It’s not often that Schneidler’s funky Graphik (here probably the digital revival Graphis EF) can be seen in contemporary use. Its peculiar ‘w’ with the ductus of German Kurrentschrift reveals that the typeface is 80 years old already.

“Edith Piaf” is based on Emily Conners’ bestseller release Bombshell (2012), but with smoothened contours and a few customizations. Bombshell’s ‘t’ with its bar floating above the stem was obviously considered too quirky. For an ad-hoc modification, the clash of ‘i’ dot and ‘t’ bar is unsatisfactory. The smaller type in white is the Latin part of Sakkal Majalla, an Arabic typeface that comes bundled with Microsoft Windows.

I can only hope this is the first and last time I’ve seen Manhattan Script (2014) in use. This script by the prolific Kimberly Geswein looks like it was made of soggy fries. It has no drive or tension, and the joins are poor — sorry.

“Russian Monks” — this poster almost exclusively relies on Chaparral (1997). Carol Twombly’s humanist slab is also used for some of the other posters as well as for the Franzhans 06 logo.

“Monumentos” (sights) is in Bombshell.

The current TV spot by German discount supermarket chain Lidl announces an “Iberian Week” with special offers for food and drinks from Spain and Portugal. It features a number of keywords in various popular typefaces, including two recently released scripts, Rolling Pen (2013) and Bombshell (2012). Latter was created by Emily Conners and, together with her Carolyna Pro Black, made it into the 15 most popular fonts of 2012 at MyFonts. The high-contrast script with the bouncy baseline still ranks 8th among their current best sellers, outselling classics like Frutiger, DIN or Futura. This is the first example of Bombshell in the Fonts In Use Collection, though.

“Portugal” is represented by Rolling Pen, a monolinear script by Argentinian designer Alejandro Paul.

I couldn’t find a match for these thin narrow handdrawn caps. There are lots of such fonts, but it could just as well be a custom creation. [Edit: Hadrian has identified it as Populaire.]

“Tapas” appears to be in Stymie Bold, slanted and re-erected by tilting the baseline.

“Moda” (fashion) is rendered in the stereotypical Neue Helvetica Ultralight.

Various styles of Stymie, with texture effect. One of the few things the proponents and opponents of the German capital eszett can agree upon is that the lowercase form (ß) should not be used in all-caps settings, as it is the case here.

An event was recently thrown at a local authentic Italian restaurant, Giovanni's, to bring together marketing leaders of the Nashville and Atlanta areas. With the invitation, we wanted to entice people enough to attend the event and also showcase the Northern Italian authenticity. Italian wine, out-of-print Italian coins (the Lira), luxurious chocolate and a map of the motherland helped boost the event's authenticity and were packaged and hand-delivered to marketing professionals.

We used and altered Carolyna to give the invitation an air of elegant sophistication and playfulness.