Friends were sending me images asking if the typeface for "Iris" in these posters was our own Tenez. I was happy to see that yes, it was. It is rewarding to see it in use for this project, a play about Iris Apfel, played by the super talented Brazilian actress Nathalia Timberg. Slowly but surely, the images started popping in every part of town, from posters and flyers to large billboards.

I'm positive, once again, that the peculiar R was the one thing that led the choice towards Tenez. The relation of high-contrast serifs to fashion probably helped too. The set word becomes a logotype, easily recognizable in different contexts, something that relates quite well with Iris herself, nicely reduced to a minimalist illustration in some of the play's communication materials.

For the rest of the information Museo Sans is used – mostly in all caps – in counterpoint to Tenez's quirkiness, with some quirkiness of its own, like in the calligraphy-inspired number 8 to name one. On the other hand, it is a well known, perhaps even ‘default’ go-to sans that has good legibility.

It does not hurt to see Tenez associated to a fashion icon such as Iris Apfel.

As the Promotions Director for Washington University's Social Programming Board (SPB), I designed all promotional materials for the biannual outdoor concert named “WILD” (Walk In Lay Down). This included posters, Snapchat geofilters, backstage passes, and the social media artist reveal campaign and subsequent posts.

For my second round of designing WILD promotions I wanted to explore the common associations we have with the word “wild” such as wild animals (and therefore fur. True to its name, the day of the WILD concert at WashU is wild: students drink, let loose, and celebrate classes being finished for the semester.

A new title sequence debuted for Saturday Night Live's 44th Season on September 29th 2018. The show's logotype remains the same with Commercial Type’s Druk Condensed. Fatype’s Baton replaces Druk for cast member and featured player credits.

Emily Oberman yet again led her team at Pentagram on this project. [Pentagram]

SNL director Oz Rodriguez & photographer Mary Ellen Matthews also worked on the project. [SNL]

Making use of what famed type designer Nick Shinn called, “carefully naive letter forms.” [Typographica]

Baton was originally commissioned by Yorgo Tloupas and Paul Chemetoff for the redesign of GQ France magazine.

Griffith Observatory is an icon of Los Angeles, a national leader in public astronomy, a beloved civic gathering place and one of southern California’s most popular attractions. Serving as a hybrid of public observatory, planetarium, and exhibition space, it provides its audience to explore the universe but also to enjoy the panorama of Los Angeles.

This fictional rebranding project focuses on the “interaction” among several aspects about and around Griffith Observatory. It dedicates to establish a refreshing and cohesive system of the cultural entity. This was a school project at ArtCenter College of Design.

This project is a self-initiated strategical intervention for Italian manufacturer of upmarket domestic appliances, Smeg. In collaboration with Ocado, it seeks to solve incorrect refrigeration of food and drink at home. The solution comes in the form of a delivery service using colour coded packaging.

The redesign of Christie's Magazine was B.A.M.’s first commission back in 2014. B.A.M. is a joint venture between David McKendrick & Lee Belcher. After leaving their respective jobs at Esquire and Wallpaper* they worked for six weeks intensively on the new version of the magazine:

“We had to be on it 24/7, from leaving Esquire and Wallpaper* on a Friday and hitting the ground running on the Monday with the redesign. It was also our first job as B.A.M. so it had to be up to scratch.” [David Mckendrick talking with Rob Alderson]

They found inspiration by digging deeply into the auction house’s archive, which dates back to 1766:

“There were a few things we stole, I mean paid homage to,” David explained, such as a “confident use of multiple typefaces.” [It’s Nice That]

Indeed, the type palette is composed of several styles of ITC Cheltenham and the Commercial Type duo Lyon (designed by Kai Bernau) and Atlas Grotesk (designed by Carvalho Bernau & Christian Schwartz) as workhorse typefaces. The palette is completed by a display typeface conveying a retro feel, subject to change for every new issue. The first issue was using Acier, in all its superb glory!

Learn more about the project and the process behind it on It's Nice That here and there or in this podcast. And make sure to check the dedicated section on the B.A.M. website.

Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore) and Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) play the main characters in Listen Up Philip, an indie dark comedy about a multitude of frustrations that plague a writer named Philip.

Not Roth, of course—whatever gave you that idea?—but Philip Lewis Friedman, portrayed by Jason Schwartzman. Unless, that is, you insist that the font the trailer uses to display the movie’s title is identical to the iconic one used on the cover of Portnoy’s Complaint, or that the whole bit about a young Jewish writer taking shelter in the summer home of his older Jewish mentor is basically the plot for The Ghost Writer, or that you can’t seriously have Jason Schwartzman play a self-indulged novelist named Philip without evoking the Old Man from New Jersey.
–– Tablet Mag, 2014

The typographic reference for the movie logo must have been the Philip Roth paperback series by Bantam Books (1970–1978) and Corgi Books (1974), both set in Benguiat Caslon. The paperback designs in turn refer to the dustjacket designed by Paul Bacon for Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint (1969), a design that started a series of book covers following the formula ‘Roth = Caslon + swashes + bold colors’.

For Listen Up Philip, designer Teddy Blanks picked Cabernet for logo and headlines, assisted by Bodoni for credits and copy. Cabernet (2003) is an unofficial revival of Benguiat Caslon (1965), originally designed by Ed Benguiat for the Photo-Lettering library during his years as the type house’s art director. In the same year that Cabernet was released, House Industries acquired the rights to the Photo Lettering catalogue, and their digital revival of Benguiat Caslon was one of the first typefaces made available. It has has less swashes than Cabernet, but more delicate hairlines and it comes with a matching shadow weight.

The movie title and poster were designed by Teddy Blanks (CHIPS), who writes: “The design of the theatrical poster is meant to evoke film posters of the 1970s with its thin border and abundant white space. Its central image is a painting by illustrator Anna Bak-Kvapil. The film’s end title sequence, set in type meant to resemble the swashy bookjackets of Philip Roth’s early novels, comprises nineteen book covers designed specifically for the film” — see this dedicated post.

Designed by Lantern, Growth Rings brings almost seventy years of New Zealand sawmilling heritage to the Kent coastline, where they handcraft the finest oak flooring, furniture, and homewares this side of Auckland. As a social enterprise, they also provide education and training for those who have otherwise been met with barriers to employment.

Lantern celebrated the imperfections of the company’s oak, and its folk, through a suite of powerful creative headlines and textural photography, designed to personify the character and personality of their people and products. They told these stories using BIG — a raw, condensed display font developed by João Miranda and Bruno Rodrigues. Coming from a series of handprinted wood type specimens, the letterforms not only reflect the era of timber typesetting, but the angular forms also compliment the quarter-sawn styling of the logo.

This poster serves as a summary of the works of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. Kuma searches for continuums between the past and present; threading a narrative between tradition and the needs of the Japanese metropolis.

Product catalog of 22 Design Studio, a Taiwan based lifestyle product brand featuring concrete as their main material.

The Avenir Next family is used for the titles, while the small text is Noto Sans, which is neutral and can be read clearly in small printed size. Chinese titles are in Dyna Li Hei.

“The crucial first step was a scrapbook that Sofia handed out to the cast and crew. I picked out a font for the front cover, which we ended up using as the logo.” — Peter Miles

The layout and use of Van Condensed was already well established in Miles’ work for The Journal Gallery in Brooklyn.

Special edition of the poster for the Opening Ceremony shop.

Printed Pages is a magazine by online publishing platform It’s Nice That, with “its own identity, connected to but distinct from It's Nice That”.

This issue (redesign) contains mostly multipage features on design, combining interviews with full-size visuals: sports photography, an interview with noteworthy designers and entrepreneurs, a short story.

For both headlines and running text the design uses combinations of Avenir (including two modified versions) and Tiempos. Navigational information such as page numbers is set in Aperçu Mono.

Tangent Café is an East Vancouver café and bar serving craft beer and hosting local music events.

The curvaceous ’70s face ITC Grouch is the anchor of the identity. Prestige Elite and Avenir are used for the text in printed materials. For the website these are substituted with the system font family Courier New and freebie webfont Raleway. It’s kind of a shame (as Prestige and Avenir are available as webfonts), but the downgrade is not very noticeable on a simple, single-page site like this one.