Surfaces and Essences. Analogy as the Fule and Fire of Thinking by Douglas Hofstadter, with Emmanuel Sander; Basic Books.

“Clever typographic jacket design […] for book on analogy.” — @TiroTypeworks
The letter A is shown in three different typefaces; Magnificat (magenta), Hobo (yellow), and Mrs Eaves (cyan). Latter is also used for the title and the names.

Design by Andrea Cardenas with art direction by Nicole Caputo.

On her portfolio site, Andrea Cardenas shows a different, unused version. This design exhibits the same basic concept, but the execution is way more subtle, with more conventional letterforms all rendered in the same shade of red. Here the ‘A’s in the title and authors’ names are distinguished by color only.

Sculpture City Saint Louis 2014 was a year-long initiative to draw attention to the presence sculpture has in the landscape of the St. Louis region. Led by Laumeier Sculpture Park in collaboration with regional arts organizations, it brought new ideas to the interpretation and understanding of the works that adorn and define the community. Organized as part of this initiative is Monument/Anti-Monument, an international conference for artists, historians, curators, architects and other experts to share global perspectives on sculpture and its relationship to place. Warehouse is used for the organization’s logotype with Monotype Grotesque used as the main typeface across all communications collateral.

blk. alkaline mineral water, is infused with naturally black fulvic trace minerals. The innovative infusion of Fulvic trace minerals with fresh alkaline water, gives blk it's distinct black color. Fulvic trace minerals are thought to contain an abundance of natural plant sourced nutrients including: natural electrolytes, amino acids, 77 trace minerals, antioxidants, and a pH of 8.0+

For the logo, Gotham’s square period is replaced by a circle.

Source: media.ireland.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Tourism Ireland uses a variety of typefaces in its visual identity. The most prominent is* Trinité Italic — more precisely, the Medium Italic №2 with extenders of medium length. The distinguished design by Bram de Does graces the tagline “Jump into Ireland”, the central element of the global campaign launched by Publicis in 2012.

Source: media.ireland.com License: All Rights Reserved.

But there’s something fishy going on, and I’m not talking about the lowered initial ‘I’. What’s up with the entry strokes of ‘u’, ‘m’, ‘p’? Is this really Trinité? Frank Grießhammer spotted a campaign poster in Paris with the French version “Vibrez au rythme de l’Irlande”, which exhibits more oddities. He comments: “This is just incredible. Who ON EARTH would use Trinité like a free font???? […] The V and y are from the Roman. The b is the construction of somebody insane. The z is from another typeface. This whole thing is SAD!” Albert-Jan Pool chimes in: “The ‘b’ in Vibrez is either stupid or ignorant, maybe even both […] At second thought, the ‘b’ seems to be a mirrored ‘d’ …”

And it doesn’t stop there: ‘J’ is bereft of its terminal. Instead of using a proper ‘u’, the ‘n’ has been turned upside-down. Likewise, ‘p’ is actually a rotated ‘d’. The ‘t’ is a complete reinvention featuring a longer ascender. The dot on the ‘i’ is lowered. The ‘o’ is probably taken from the Roman. It has been squeezed to match the narrowness of the Italic, but the wrong contrast axis still reveals the iniquity.

Source: www.ireland.com License: All Rights Reserved.

The tagline in various languages — the typographic atrocity continues: The German version (top right) introduces capitals from an unrelated typeface. The ‘b’ is different from the French version, but it’s not the ‘b’ from Trinité Italic either. Only Italians (bottom left) seem to get the correct ‘b’. The Spanish logo contains yet another incongruously narrow capital, plus the ‘y’ from the Roman, an upside-down ‘b’ as ‘q’, and a ‘v’ alien to Trinité.

It almost looks as if the designers started out with “Ireland” and reused as many glyphs as possible, as if they had to pay per glyph. Trinité is not only regarded one of the most beautiful typefaces there is, but, at €281 per style, also one of the most expensive. This pricing policy has helped TEFF to preserve a certain exclusivity, and to keep its products out of the hand of novices and dabblers. It didn’t work here.

If you don’t like the design of one specific character, ask the foundry whether it could provide you with an alternate form. Especially if your rationale is sensible (e.g. the letterform in question is nonstandard) and the price is right, your chances are good. Most type makers will happily respond to the needs of their customers.

If you can’t stand the design of several characters, well, then pick another typeface! There are plenty of options. If you don’t know exactly what you are doing — if you lack experience in drawing letterforms, you probably don’t —, refrain from tampering with the font yourself. You are not going to make it any better. And for this particular case: Tinkering around with Trinité like this is akin to buying a bottle of Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve Whiskey, only to pour it into hot chocolate.

*) This rant was written some time ago, but never published. In the meantime, Tourism Ireland was redesigned. Now tourismireland.com uses Bree Serif with Open Sans (website by Strata3). The consumer-oriented ireland.com combines various styles of the Museo series (Slab, Italic, Sans, Sans Rounded) with Proxima Nova. Both branches use Formata for their respective logos. Trinité can still be found on the business-oriented meetinireland.com where it is paired with Raleway.

Source: www.discoverirelandebooks.com License: All Rights Reserved.

These multilingual brochures about fishing in Ireland date back from 2010. Here, Trinité is used out-of-the-box, without any silly modifications. Apparently, Tourism Ireland obtained a waiver from TEFF’s restrictive licensing terms. At least the standard licensing agreement doesn’t allow embedding the fonts in Flash and PDF files.

Source: www.discoverirelandebooks.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.discoverirelandebooks.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.discoverirelandebooks.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Anomoly used with Fairplex in Los Angeles magazine -

Los Angeles has chronicled life in the second-largest U.S. city since the magazine’s founding by Geoff Miller in the spring of 1961. The definitive resource for Angelenos, Los Angeles covers the people, food, culture, arts and entertainment, fashion, lifestyle, and news that defines Southern California with a signature mix of feature-length writing, service journalism, investigative reporting, and design.

Hamburg based Agency twotype did a redesign of arte Magazin, the monthly magazine of the Franco-German TV network that is dedicated to culture and the arts. The new issues, published by Axel-Springer Corporate Solutions, are using arte’s coporate typeface Gotham together with FF Franziska for text.

The 136-page book comprises nearly 100 insets and 44 choropleth-coded maps illustrating global data. The visual voice was inspired by academic quarterly publications; sophisticated but digestible, with a color palette inspired by tissue and cell photography. Circles are used as a consistent throughline, to represent the cellular and global levels that cancer strikes.

Visual hierarchy allows skimming and browsing, while details invite careful reading. The left column is used as a brief summary of the chapter; numbered indicators in the body copy point readers to the insets for the deeper story.

Fabienne Feltus’ design for the 2014 edition of the clubbing event Techno Cafe in Vienna uses Typejockeys’ Carabelle in combination with Cellardoor’s Leberkaas.

We came up with a design system in which each book is unique but relates to the others, so that what sits on your shelf is a visual continuum. […] All covers are unique, rhizomatic iterations of a system, and each book is the master design, not just a variation of a fixed template.

Generative book cover design by Atelier Carvalho Bernau for octavopublicaties.nl.

“Open Switzerland is a conceptual project born from the merger of GVA Studio with the international network Base to create BaseGVA in Geneva Switzerland. The initiative, comprising provocative, rethought, iconic Swiss imagery, an interactive website and a custom-made ‘neutral’ typeface, launches a debate about what it means to challenge a country’s identity and, in doing so, its very reason for being.”

More info at Nonpareille »

Visual identity for The Danish Shipowners' Association. Stationary, annual reports and other publications, website, PowerPoint presentations, infographics, ads etc.