For their branding and packaging, Toronto-based Stonemill Slow Crafted Bakehouse uses John Downer’s Brothers, “the font that keeps on giving” (Joe Clark). The logo features a few of the alternates included in the font, for ‘S’, ‘C’ and ‘e’.

The main logo on the window shop is hand painted, adding smooth corners to Proto Grotesk. This is especially visible in the ‘A’.

Grain Traders is a restaurant that wants to feed people right. Everything about the brand and space had to tell this story in the quick moments people are there for their workday lunch.

We drew inspiration from a variety of places and sources : Anthony Bourdain’s food trips into the Bronx and Queens, alongside flour sacks from the Mid-West and old Puerto Rican posters were key in providing a base for the Grain Traders visual and spatial universe.

Because this concept essentially puts users through a queue, choose and pay process our brief for the space was to make these activities disappear by immersing guests in a authentic atmosphere. This led to special touch points higher than eye level so wherever you are in the space you would not feel left out of the experience. [Parable Studio]

Parable Studio built the logotype and main identity of this Singapore restaurant with Proto Grotesk. Even if the menu on the actual location is hand-painted to add a bit of cachet to the atmosphere, Proto Grotesk is used for everything else, from shop window to stationery and coffee cups. On printed menus, it is paired with a bunch of typefaces from Hoefler & Co. to add an American flavor. Klim Type’s Pitch makes an appearance, too.

As always, Parable are playing with glyphs included in the font that most designers underestimate or forget, and their layouts are full of such typographic details: circled digits, arrows, alternate number set, ornaments …

Detail from the hand-painted menu. Some of the styles might be modeled after fonts, see e.g. House Industries’ Signpainter Collection, and especially House Script for “Black” / “By Hand”.

Proto Grotesk is used alongside Knockout, Pitch and Leviathan on this menu. Note the circled digits.

The menu features a plethora of additional fonts, including Page No. 508 (“Bowls”, with upside-down ‘M’ for ‘W’), Kestrel Script and Local Gothic (“The Beebop”), Vitesse and Neuland (“Mr. Pirom”), Bureau Grot (“Add Ons”), and more.

“Prototype for a new package of the oldest product of its kind produced in America. It was rejected by the client.” — Gertrude Snyder and Alan Peckolick, Herb Lubalin, 1985

The top and bottom lines of top use a phototype version of Thorowgood Sans Shaded (probably Photo-Lettering’s Sanserif Shade Blockshadow), a typeface Lubalin used often. Ingredients are listed in Benguiat Buffalo Condensed, though the inconsistency (see ‘S’ in “PLUS”) indicates that it may have been was lettered by hand. PLINC’s catalogs show Buffalo with two ‘A’ variants: without top serif and with left top serif. There may have also been a bilateral top serif as it appears in this design and in House Industries’ digitization.

Started by two guys with a passion for providing quality food for all, Chicken & Sons is proud to offer a new take on the classic chicken shop. All their food is prepared with love and care using only the finest ingredients. I was commissioned to design a brand identity that would reflect the authentic approach to their food. The result is a brand identity that harks back to the days before mass produced fast food chains.

The primary logo replaces the word chicken with a chicken’s head, the brand identity also makes use of turn-of-the-century illustrations of chickens that appear to be talking. I came up with the line “Chicken worth crossing the road for” which sums up this new street front eatery. Using craft paper and stamps helps reflect the ethos of Chicken & Sons while being a cost effect solution.

Photography: Christopher Ireland.

Sr. Frango (“Mr. Chicken”) is a restaurant just outside Almancil, Portugal, and specializes in piri piri chicken.

In 1988, at the International Competition in Sydney, Australia, Silva Guerreiro presented his gastronomic creation. The jury unanimously awarded him the Gold Diploma for the Best Barbecue Chicken ever prepared in the world.
Established in Almancil since 1992, Sr. Frango today welcomes thousands of visitors from all over the world in a modern and welcoming environment, presenting their customers with an informal and healthy cuisine.

The illuminated letterforms of the neon signs are derived from two typefaces: The sans serif caps are based on ITC Eras (A. Boton & A. Hollenstein), the script is a slightly modified Elite (Aldo Novarese).

via @SignalType

Letters like ‘M’ and especially the curvy ‘r’ reveal Elite as the source of inspiration. Unlike in Aldo Novarese’s original design, the letters were joined up, and caps were embellished with curved entry strokes.

A very effective lost-dog flyer, using PL Behemoth (Monotype’s version of Behemoth which is more condensed than the version offered digitally by Photo-Lettering.)

According to the Chronicle Books blog, the flyer was made as a redesign by MacFadden & Thorpe.

Before and after the flyer redesign

The branding of the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel in Chicago, located in an old building that used to be (surprise!) an athletic association, gave Mucca lots of historic sources to work from. One of these was an old sign that inspired them to design a custom typeface for the project, a quirky industrial grotesque in multiple widths, now released as NoExit. It's very sturdy-looking and looks good next to the more traditional and delicate curves of Harriet.

An advertisement shown in Flight, July 10, 1909. The typefaces appear to be Caslon’s Doric Italic No. 1 (later available as Old Gothic Bold Italic) and Gothic No. 2. The smaller sans serifs are not as clear, but could be Grotesque No. 8 and Miller & Richard Sans-Serif No. 4 or No. 5.

Bocce’s Bakery creates nutritious handcrafted dog treats from natural, nutritious, locally sourced and seasonal ingredients from its premises in the New York borough of Brooklyn. Each of the bakery’s treats are batch-produced from four or less ingredients, brought together using simple wheat-free recipes, and born of a passion for conscientious organic cookery and inspired by Bocce, a biscuit loving dog who was carrying a few extra pounds.

Bocce’s reached out to UK-based design studio Robot Food to develop a new brand identity and package design treatment that would bring these more in line with the quality of their product and convey the values, story and personable qualities that are the foundation of their business.

Read more about this project on BP&O.

Keeping it simple, but a bit chunky and rough.

“Launching in the US in mid-late 2013, Kozlik’s Mustard Powder takes the amazing flavour Canada knows and loves and makes it available to the masses as a powder. As a challenger in the mustard category, Kozlik’s wanted a package and presence that was dramatically different than the competition. Bold, gourmet, contemporary.”

Router in use in the identity programme for a pet service company, design by Karen Messing

Designer Karen Messing created this charming identity programme for PuppSync, a company that provides a new way to book pet services.

Router in use in the identity programme for a pet service company, design by Karen Messing

Router in use in the identity programme for a pet service company, design by Karen Messing

Router in use in the identity programme for a pet service company, design by Karen Messing

Quotation from the book titled Magyar bélyeg története: "Zoltán Nagy was a graphic artist who joined the Mint in 1940 as a designer.[...] He worked on producing paper money. He designed 206 stamps between 1947 and 1977 ..[..] One stamp in the series produced for Stamp Day 1993 contains his portrait in homage to his oeuvre." — krisse2012

An advertisement for 3 Little Kittens Cat Food appearing in the October 1954 issue of Family Circle.

The brush script in the speech balloon is hand lettering. The bold condensed face is Tempo. Only two (incomplete) digital versions exist so far from the large metal Ludlow family of the early 1930s. These are Tempo Heavy Condensed from Linotype, and Red Rooster’s Tempo RR Grunge, a rough rendition based on the Medium weight.

The type at the bottom is probably Vogue, another 1930s Futura follower, this one by Intertype. No proper digital interpretation exists.