As part of the new visual identity for Zealand Academy, Playtype created an expressive and experimental display typeface named Zealand Display.

The identity is centered around a narrative of change, growth, and personal development, seeking to communicate the journey of committing to an education. This journey is often a winding path in a constant state of flux, and each day’s dedication will ultimately be part of defining a future scenario.

Inspired by this story of change, we decided to build a dynamic typeface that evolves as the user types. The typeface features three distinct expressive styles that are randomly jumbled as the words are written, making the appearance of the sentence change as it is written and only take its final shape when the sentence is complete.

This typeface is a core part of the type-driven visual identity and helps Zealand execute a cohesive and visually strong storytelling across all their communications platforms.

Studio Andrew Howard and André Cruz Studio designed the graphic identity for the 2023 edition of the Porto Design Biennale, which opened in October.

A visual identity animated on multiple media, based on Baste (from lift type), 3D water shapes and a background color that evolves in gradients.

From their Instagram post:

The first item we conceived for the 2023 edition was the digital poster. From the outset, rather than designing for print, we were set on first designing for digital animation with the idea that all printed/static materials would flow from this. The printed posters are stills from the animations.

Baste A Black is supported by Klim Type Foundry’s Untitled Sans.

Orca is a new project from musician Leonor Cabrita, described as a “soulful blend of love and resistance”. Their first album Paisagem Trânsito, released in 2023 on Facada Records, was designed by Desisto, featuring an artwork by Maria Severino.

It makes a proud black-and-red use of Ready Active by Plain Form, including some of its abstract patterns, together with Mabry by Colophon. The two typefaces operate both in parallel and hand-in-hand, with Ready occasionally used as wiggly initials for the sans serif.

Front, artwork by Maria Severino

Back, with track list

Spine with Ready ornaments

Bits of credits, bits of lyrics, using Ready as initials for Mabry

Back of the booklet

Lagar is a production company based between Malaga and Madrid.

The identity of this Spanish creative duo was curated by Alex Velasco, a graphic designer and an art director living and working between Barcelona and Madrid.

For Lagar’s logo and typography, Velasco chose the Brass font (by Fantasia Type) associated with Burgess (by Colophon Foundry) and the monospaced Droulers by Bureau Brut.

53 is a contemporary Asian fine dining restaurant in New York City that draws its creative essence from its iconic location. Nestled next to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in a tower designed by prominent architect Jean Nouvel, the restaurant name is an homage to its physical location at 53 West 53rd Street.

Inspired by the interior of the space, the logomark and visual identity feature an intricate, architecturally structured icon with the numbers five and three intertwined, fitting together as seamlessly as the restaurant’s three dining levels.

The identity designed by Emily Oberman's Team of Pentagram uses a pair of complimentary typefaces: Grand Slang, a sleek, calligraphy-inspired typeface by Nikolas Type, and Yport by Luzi Type.

Brownie Points is Black-owned and operated outlet for the goods designed by Texas-born, LA-based artist/comedian Rinny Perkins. It creates identity-reflective art through retro advertising to take up space and give voice to those who feel unheard. From the website:

What started out as Rinny’s 70s-inspired collages and self-published zines in 2017 turned into this fully fleshed out shop where we celebrate showing up as we are and that means not holding our tongue when it comes to dating, sexuality and mental health.

In 2022, graphic design sudio and Brazilian creative duo Monga Design were asked to create their new visual identity, which needed to be retro but at the same time contemporary.

The main fonts in use are Rabbit Hole Display by Tomasz Pawluk (@boafff) and Perfectly Nineties by Jen Wagner. The shown tote bag and labels additionally feature a range of other fonts, including Bookmania, Lazybones, Cooper Black, and Sloop Script.

The Kay is a boutique Pilates studio right outside of Antwerp, Belgium.

On their website, Off-The-Grid mentions:

We created a brand that’s minimal yet different. Built around the idea of movement and alignment. The logo can be split up to add important pieces of text in between or it can be used on one line.

For the brand assets, Off-The-Grid usually worked with the logo as the main focus. They made the logo large and bold so there’s immediate brand recognition.

The typeface used for the logo is Relais with a modified A and Y. It is paired with Sofia for texts.

An artwork made as a gift for a close friend, congratulating them on the arrival of a sweet little angel. "HAPPY DAY, HAPPY LIFE" with the hope that the baby will always be happy and joyful throughout life.

Breuninger Magazin, a publication by the luxury multi-brand German store by the same name, underwent a visual redesign by God save the screen. Graphic research, art direction by Mariela Montiel, and photography by Kristian Schuller. Romie (designed by Margot Lévêque) is used alongside the store’s brand typeface Sofia.

Football in the West: for issue 176, ballesterer travels to Vorarlberg and visits the most western Austrian county and its football. They talk to players, officials and ultras, see mountains, valleys and derbys. Beyond the cover stories they say farewell to Pele, talk to Sturm Graz president Christian Jauk, marvel over Moroccan grounds, Bilbao supporters, and much more. The display typeface chosen for this issue is Motter Ombra by Othmar Motter of Vorarlberger Grafik.

item (Independent platform for the Transfer of Educational impulses via a student Magazine) is the student magazine of the Department of Design and Culture at HTW Berlin.

In the fourth issue, the students explored the topic of “strip,” thereby breaking barriers, questioning privilege, and addressing subjects such as body positivity, diversity, sex work, and social norms.

Is love for sale or is noncommittal sex the new ideal? Are people whose bodies don’t conform to the norm included in fantasies and behaviors of the majority? Why, even in 2022, are feelings still interpreted as obstacles and femininity as weakness?

Questions like these were tackled in this issue and exciting people, such as Ivana Vladislava, Annabelle Ferlings, Yanis Berrewaerts and Fritzi Krafczyk, shared their thoughts with us.

In addition, 19 projects by students from the Department of Design and Culture are featured in this year’s issue and provide an interesting insight into the recent semesters at university. The magazine was founded, conceived, designed, and introduced by Sally Paschmann and is intended to provide insights into the debates, thoughts, impulses, and projects that arise during the course of studies. It provides a platform for students to introduce themselves and their projects and to consider their work in a socially relevant context.

Publisher: HTW Berlin, Department of Design and Culture
Founding and supervision: Sally Paschmann
Editing: Coco Nova Estèle Schätzke, Emilia Moro, Eli Zaza Moysiopoulou, Dylan Demtröder, Aylin Eryilmaz, Luzie Drawe
Design: Al Ayaasha Medford, Alexandra Trinkl, Camille Baumann, Ella MacWilliams, Florencia Ramirez, Mani Pham Bui

The Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles is a theatrical institution founded in Brussels in 1945 (called Théâtre national de Belgique at the time) by Jacques Huisman and René Hainaux.

With Pierre Thys as their new general and artistic director for the 2022–2023 season, the theater wanted a visual identity revamp with inclusive writing as one of its core axes.

The cultural institution worked with French-Belgian collective Bye Bye Binary, formed in November 2018, which aims to explore new visual and typographic forms adapted to the French language, in particular the creation of glyphs (letters, ligatures, interpuncts, linking or symbiotic elements) with inclusive and non-binary language and writing as a starting point, field of experimentation and subject of research.

This collaboration resulted in the creation of BBB Poppins TN, a post-binary rendition of Poppins – originally designed by Jonny Pinhorn (with Devanagari by Ninad Kale) – augmented with inclusive glyphs.

Two optical sizes were made: a text version in which letters such as F G l t were redrawn to have diagonal terminals. These changes can also be found in letters H L R T e f r and y in the display one.

From the article on the matter:

Eugénie Bidaut and Camille Circlude have redesigned and enriched the Poppins typeface which now accompanies us on our media. Almost no more midpoint, but many new glyphs, an enriched typography, for an openness to all possibilities, and a redistribution under free license to allow pollination to continue and new imaginaries to be shared.

BBB Poppins is planned for release as part of Bye Bye Binary’s type foundry in 2023.

What better way to spread a message than to wear it? We designed a T-shirt about a vision on how to help fighting for cleaner air. Available from Everpress, with text set in PicNic and Suisse Int’l.

Artworld is a talent agency based in both New York and London. They promote the work of a dozen photographers and directors, with a focus on matching the client’s needs and the artistic development of their artists.

For the portfolio of the agency, Artworld collaborated with Mouthwash Studio. The usual problem with this kind of website is to show the specificity of the work of each photographer while having a global identity distinctive enough for the agency to be remembered. Mouthwash Studio designed a website where the user's first approach is through the names of the artists, but the reading is very soon followed by an impactful photo of the photographer's work, made visible through a hover. The image appears on a colored semi-transparent background, that helps identify the style of each artist and create a specific atmosphere that differentiates them from one another.

The names of the artists and the descriptive texts are set in Cardinal Fruit and Cardinal Classic Long from Production Type, while the logotype and all technical info are set in Graphik from Commercial Type. The classical association of a geometric sans with a serif is pushed to extremes on the front page with the confrontation of Cardinal Fruit with Graphik Super; the condensed elasticity of Cardinal Fruit finding its counterpoint in the massive logotype at the bottom of the page.

In 2021, Réseau MAP (Réseau des Musiques Actuelles à Paris) asked me to create a whole graphic system for their event called JIRAFE des Musiques Actuelles – Journées de l’Innovation, de la Répétition, de l’Accompagnement, de la Formation et de l’Environnement (“Contemporary music – days of innovation, rehearsal, support, training, and environment”).

This free three-day event aims to present a wide range of structures, services, and devices for professionals in the field of live music, with numerous round tables, workshops and speed meetings.

The primary aim was to create coherence in the identity of the 11th edition of the event and to enhance its visibility. The challenge also included the creation of an extendable brand identity system. The main typefaces used in the identity are Krayewski (Laïc) and Stratos (Production Type). The Réseau MAP website additionally uses Neue Kabel (Linotype).

For more info, visit the JIRAFE website.

How Design Makes Us Think explores how design is everywhere. It’s visceral. It’s intellectual. It’s emotional. It influences how we feel and act. Using hundreds of examples across design disciplines—from graphic design to industrial design and architecture—Sean Adams explores the media and messages designers deploy to inspire, provoke, amuse, anger, or reassure. He decodes the many ways in which design makes us think.

The Tavern by WS is a very exclusive members American brasserie featuring one of the most extensive lists of wines by the glass in Hudson Yards. A passion project by Stephen Ross, Marvin Shanken and Kenneth Himmel bringing together the finest wines & spirits, world-class dining experiences and unique cultural events.

The logotype is in Love. Love is paired with the sans-serif Sofia. Identity and graphic design by Base Design.

Each year FISK designs the identity for the University of Oregon MFA and BFA Art programs.

For the Product Design handbook, they opted for Kreuz. Designed by Emmanuel Besse and released by Production Type, it’s an uncompromising display typeface. When used large like in this student guide, Kreuz can flaunt its industrial roots. They become best visible in the octagonal outer shapes that are reminiscent of bolt heads. Kreuz seems like a perfect choice for a program that emphasizes the aspect of making things and is positioned at the intersection of creativity and technology. It is paired with Graphik by Commercial Type for smaller text.

The A3 panel trifold was offset-printed using two metallic Pantone colors.

Poster designed for The Party by Ostbahnhof:

Our red headed stepchild is back! VERS – the sexy new Friday Spinoff where “Anything Goes”. October 11th (and every second Friday of the month) we bring the weird, wild, and wonder of the warehouse to Precinct in Downtown LA. Limited capacity, limitless possibilities. Anything Goes.?

The Party by Ostbahnhof is an international event series that bridges the gap between queer: music, art, and political communities.

“VERS” mixes several styles of Radim Peško’s Lÿno series, namely Ulys, Walt, and Jean. Lÿno Ulys additionally is used for “BTM”, and Walt for “TOP”. In additional roles: Roslindale for “Anything Goes”, Jabin (top) and Digestive (center) for “The Party by Ostbahnhof”, and Ogg Display in caps for the rotated lines at the sides. Neue Helvetica is used for the lineup, and Beatrice Display for the date and venue.

See also the poster for the September edition.

Detail.

Detail.

Back after a yearlong pause, Struny podzimu (Strings of Autumn), Prague’s twenty-one-year-old multi-genre festival returns with a renewed team and a new visual identity. Martin Vácha twisted and turned the strings into the S-shaped logo and built on the idea with the contours of the letters, which from time to time “skip a beat” as a small glitch, dissonance or line-up experiment.