My First Book of… is the title of Kumon’s early‑learning workbook series designed to build pre‑writing and fine‑motor skills for young children. The books start with introducing basic drawing motions through step‑by‑step activities that help children practice pencil control, shape recognition, and hand–eye coordination, and then move on to more advanced topics. There are tiers for ages 2–4, 3–5, 4–6, 5–7, and 6–8 years. Not all books include “First” in the series title.

The cover typography combines Lithos Black for the main title with Futura Book and FF Providence for supporting text such as the series name and age range.

For the Cursa dels Nassos 2025 campaign, ESIETE developed a visual system and communication assets built around Nassos Display, a custom typeface designed by ESIETE for the race. The letterforms act as modular building blocks: cropped, repeated, and recomposed into energetic shapes that amplify rhythm, speed, and impact across formats and touchpoints.

Nassos Display was selected for the ADG Laus Awards 2025 (In Book, Creative/Experimental)

Raleigh rappers Osio and N3V4 have released their latest single “Cold Hands.” The pair released the track with an accompanying music video which is now available to watch on YouTube. The video uses the recently released Bungee Widths by David Johnathan Ross for the main text and title card, and Helvetica Condensed for the small text and other credits.

The video features different Raleigh artists like Joey Zen, KATA, and Swayve from the 47 Eyez On Me collective and BodyBag O from the pairs' label Gnevorios.

Source: www.instagram.com Arabako Lautada. License: All Rights Reserved.

Design for the two-day festival marking the end of the concert tour by the musical duo Dupla. All promotional material exclusively uses the Basati typeface by Blancoletters, in its various weights. The typeface is applied consistently across the compositions supporting the poster’s focus on local culture and public celebration.

Source: www.instagram.com Arabako Lautada. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.instagram.com Arabako Lautada. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.instagram.com Arabako Lautada. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.instagram.com Arabako Lautada. License: All Rights Reserved.

KOLORIT is an open platform that realizes concerts in the fields of experimental sound, electronic music and audiovisual art. The campaign represent a new chapter of its concert series, turning Schleuse Zwei into a space where sound becomes reflection. This time, the question is no longer just what we remember – but how memory takes shape when we listen.

Inspired by ideas from philosophy and psychology, KOLORIT explores memory as something fluid and alive. A constant negotiation between what stays, what fades, and what transforms. Between echo and silence, recollection and invention, music becomes a way to sense what usually remains hidden.

The line-up for the show on November 29, 2025, included Kuoppamäki & Herbst, Multipolar, Phasenmensch & Antoine Saint-Martin, Eyal Talmor, and Laktose Intolerant (DJ).

(Text by KOLORIT, with slight edits. See also the press release by Hochschule Düsseldorf.)

The promotional materials were designed by Jan Schmidt Bist and present the first use of Memoir, a free all-caps typeface by Daniel Gremme. The KOLORIT logo (not part of this design) appears to use Futura Bold.

Swiss Gothic (with Biform alternates) and Fiedler Gothic in early use for 18 Yellow Roses. The album by Bobby Darin (1936–1973) “debuted on the Cashbox albums chart in the issue dated July 20, 1963, remaining on that chart for a total of seven weeks and hitting a peak position of number 69.”

In his Allmusic review, critic Richie Unterberger praised the single “18 Yellow Roses” and its B-side “Not For Me” but generally panned the rest of the album, writing “otherwise 18 Yellow Roses sounds like a bit of a rush job rather than an artistic statement.”

[More info on Discogs]

Movie poster for the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys, directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, and Diane Wiest.

The title treatment is set in caps from Palatino (designed by Hermann Zapf), using a mix of sizes. The billing block is also set in Palatino.

The tagline is set in Caslon 540@ by the American Type Founders Company.

From Wikipedia:

Art Van Damme (April 9, 1920 – February 15, 2010) was an American jazz accordionist.

Van Damme toured Europe and was popular with jazz enthusiasts in Japan.

The swashy Bookman variant used on the cover of his 1967 compilation Music for Lovers is PLINC Bookman Swash. The song list is set in all-caps News Gothic.

[More info on Discogs]

2024 campaign street banners

Advertising campaigns for Barcelona’s Cursa dels Nassos 2023 and 2024, a race held every December 31st in the Catalan capital.

In the early design stages, inspiration came from the digital typefaces used in electronic athletics scoreboards, as the primary goal was to convey the spirit of a race. Initially, intuition led us to work with a strict grid and matrix-based structure. However, after analyzing most of the available typefaces that follow this approach, we gradually opted for a more organic and free-flowing style. This shift gave the typeface a distinctive and unique character that captivated us, as it creates a singular visual identity when used for headlines or short texts.

The Cursa dels Nassos is part of the holiday festivities, and the character of this typeface fits perfectly in festive or even theatrical communications, as it can be interpreted as points of light, bulbs, or reflections.

After a year of intermittent work by ESIETE, the Circle version was completed, featuring uppercase letters and six versatile weights, including a brutalist variant.

In an exhilarating sporting event that captivated spectators worldwide, Kenyan athlete Beatrice Chebet stole the spotlight by setting a new women’s world record in the 5-kilometer distance during the 2023 run.

If Andy Warhol predicted 15 minutes of fame for everyone, Chebet achieved immortality in 14 minutes and 13 seconds. She not only left an indelible mark on the history of athletics but also elevated the race’s reputation, earning it the title of Best Women's Race of the Year by World Athletics, the sport's governing body.

In 2024, and as expected, the athlete broke her own record once again, setting a new benchmark at 13:54, becoming the first woman to run under 14 minutes in the 5K and making this race the first to earn four stars! :)

Beatrice Chebet on the finish line

Beatrice Chebet and her family holding the 5k world record 2024

Beatrice Chebet adding the 4th star to Cursa del Nassos 2024

2023 campaign street banners

In Sara Rojo’s book about Roberto Bolaño, dark blocks of text and a typographic structure marked by vertical and horizontal rules give the pages an almost oppressive sobriety. The title in silver foil on the cover symbolizes Bolaño’s ability to create light, even in the cruelest of contexts.

Neue Haas Grotesk is used throughout.

The Briarcliff Orchestra Plays… is a 1969 album released by The Briarcliff Orchestra on Harmony Records. Album title and song list are exclusively set in a single size from Century Schoolbook Italic.

[More info on Discogs]

Meet the Searchers (1963) is the debut album by the Searchers, a rock band from Liverpool, England. Shown here is the cover of the North American release on Kapp Records from the following year, which is different both in regard to the cover and the included songs. It omits the band’s first single, “Sweets for My Sweet”. From Wikipedia:

In 1964 the British Invasion started and the Searchers were at the forefront with the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five. The group appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show with “Needles and Pins” and “Ain’t That Just Like Me”, both of which became hits in the US. Kapp Records got the rights and started to release the Searchers’ music. In the American market, albums were typically limited to 12 tracks and it was expected for albums to include the current hit single. Kapp Records released a compilation of the British market albums Meet the Searchers and Sugar and Spice (five songs from each) with additional songs from the single “Needles and Pins” / “Saturday Night Out”.

[More info on Discogs]

Excerpts from the Great Masterpieces Vol. 4 is an album by the Wyncote Symphony Orchestra that was released in 1964 on Wyncote Records. The cover design features two typefaces by Filmotype. The title is set in Filmotype Ranger, mixing title case and all caps. The orchestra’s name is written in Filmotype York. The titles of the two compositions – Swan Lake and Shéhérazade – underneath the tangram-like structure are set in caps from Trade Gothic Condensed.

[More info on Discogs]

The Beach Boys Today! is the eighth studio album by the Beach Boys, released on March 8, 1965, by Capitol Records with artwork most likely designed by the record company’s art department, using photography by John Engstead.

The album title is set in all-caps Fiedler Gothic, or maybe Ameristile, with Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed for accompanying text.

[More info on Discogs]

Text on the back cover is set in several styles from News Gothic, plus Caledonia and Futura (or possibly Spartan) Italic.

A few covers from the Warner Classics collection

The Warner Classics collection brings together over 100 albums, offering a comprehensive overview of the classical repertoire through landmark recordings from the Warner Classics catalog. This anthology highlights iconic composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, and Ludwig van Beethoven, as well as renowned performers and ensembles, including cellist Pablo Casals and the Berliner Philharmoniker.

The visual identity of this collection is based on a sleek and contemporary graphic approach. The album covers primarily feature Sofia and Sofia Condensed, chosen for their clarity and modern aesthetics. Their excellent readability and elegance contribute to a balanced and cohesive layout across the entire collection.

The artistic direction of this project was entrusted to the Paris-based agency Supernova, which developed a refined graphic charter emphasizing the artists and their works. The use of Sofia Pro, characterized by its harmonious geometric shapes, enhances the institutional and timeless nature of this edition while visually complementing the richness and diversity of the repertoire it presents.

The Supernova agency utilized capitalized titles to give the CD covers a strong visual impact. In terms of font pairing, the combination of Black and Regular styles, along with tight tracking, adds a modern touch to the entire collection

The consistency of the covers creates a distinctive visual identity, making this collection of over 100 CDs instantly recognizable to classical music enthusiasts.

Sofia Pro and Sofia Pro Condensed in use, with Giuseppe Sinopoli at full intensity

Elisabeth Leonskaja interprets Schubert

Source: www.flickr.com Naiad & Walter Einsel: Art from the Heart, 2008. License: All Rights Reserved.

Naiad and Walter Einsel were a couple of illustrators. They met in 1952, got married in 1953, and shared a business – first in New York and from the mid-1960s in Westport, Connecticut – often working collaboratively on commissions.

For nearly half a century, Naiad (1927–2016) and Walter (1926–1998) created elaborate Valentines for one another. A selection of these illustrations, collages, poems and sculptures were collected in the book Art from the Heart, published in 2008 by Xlibris.

Shown here is a Valentine card that Naiad made for Walter in 1993:

Valentine Love Seeds
Sow the seeds of love and reap a Magical Harvest of sweet passon fruit. — Naiad
February 19th Nineteen Ninety-three
For Walter Only

Most of the text is rendered in her signature script calligraphy. The rest is probably hand-lettering (or rubber stamps?), but two styles are based on typefaces: “Valentine” and “Walter” are in Concave Condensed, a design that originated in metal ca. 1882 at MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan in Philadelphia. “Love Seeds” features caps from De Vinne, first cast by St. Louis’s Central Type Foundry about a decade later.

To learn more about Naiad and Walter and see more of their work, see the dedicated website and the accompanying Instagram account curated and maintained by their granddaughter, Lisa Bastoni.

This just in…

An early example of the wild and wonderful Stromberg Graphic dated to 1966! For The Troggs’s debut US album (originally released as From Nowhere), the little known typeface created by Harvey Stromberg and issued by Photo-lettering is used in reverse for the album’s name and for the B-side’s opening track, “With A Girl Like You”. Along with that, the trailblazing Cooper Black appears as the typeface below the title for additional songs on the album, with Monotype Grotesque for the tracks and Jere Real’s liner notes on the back. An alternate design for the album eliminates Stromberg in favor of Airport Black, except for the band name.

[More info on Discogs]

The catalog number uses Microgramma.

Detail from back cover

Alternate cover

Zagreb’s Žarište is a venue for contemporary live music, comedy, and theater. The visual identity, designed by the DISKO collective, blends cabaret-inspired flair with art deco sophistication to reflect the event’s dynamic energy. Bold typography and geometric patterns take center stage, creating a striking aesthetic that captures the vibrancy of the music event.

Rich, saturated colors and rhythmic compositions evoke both nostalgia and modernity, aligning perfectly with the eclectic spirit of Žarište. The design serves not only as a visual statement but also as an integral part of the event's identity.

Advent, Advent: Zürich’s Best – Xmas Fest is a series of gastronomical pop-up events by Phamily First (Julien Dô Lê Pham, Paris) with the help of Pascal Grob, Zürich Tourism, and Zmirov Communication (Paris): Zürich’s best chefs, restaurants and wines for a three day pop-up program in Paris celebrating the spirit of Xmas.

The main typeface, Citizen Grotesk (Altiplano.xyz), is a sans serif inspired by the Swiss tradition (International Style)—unique and full of character: this is far from a neutral grotesk. But then again, how could one even speak of neutrality in today’s world?

Citizen Grotesk is paired with Millionaire Script to highlight the gastronomic event (“Chef-fes, Vins”), while the bistronomic event features a second script typeface, Monaako, lending this second concept (Action Burger) with a more relaxed and casual tone.

Memphis Queen, the seventh album by soul singer Carla Thomas was released on the Stax record label in 1969. Along with that, the album displays a unique composition designed by Honeya Thompson accompanied with back and front photography taken by Bob Stone. Robert Montgomery’s Montgomery Pousse Cafe, issued by Photo-Lettering around 1969, is used for the title, shown on both sides, with the front title colored in a magenta to light blue value. Track names and credits are displayed in Helvetica.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail of the multi-colored setting in Pousse Cafe