When Santommaso Festival, a new music event in Southern Italy, set out to establish its first visual identity, the goal was to translate a deeply rooted local story into a contemporary cultural experience. Named after the city’s patron saint, the festival draws inspiration from a narrative of faith, wonder, and the legendary discovery of sacred relics. Our challenge was to transform this sense of mysticism into a strong and recognizable visual language capable of launching a brand-new event. We developed an identity that balances symbolism and sound, built around a bold, uppercase typeface that provides consistency and authority, paired with a system of mystical symbols radiating outward like sound waves to convey energy and movement. The graphic system comes to life through dynamic poster compositions, where symbols expand into immersive visuals, supported by a vibrant, contemporary color palette. The result is a striking and memorable identity that honors the city’s heritage while expressing the fresh, energetic spirit of live music.

Festa 8 Settembre celebrates the Nativity of Mary, the patron saint of the Italian city of Fusignano. The visual identity of the event was designed by Cobra Studio, using a combination of Authentic Sans and Redaction Italic. Smaller texts additionally use Suisse Int’l for its better readability. The concept behind the design was to celebrate the city's rich traditions while adding a unique and modern touch.

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), The Metropolitan Museum of Art will display the artist’s painting Saint Jerome Praying in the Wilderness (begun ca. 1483). A special loan from the Vatican Museums, this monumental, exquisitely rendered painting is in an unfinished state, providing viewers with extraordinary insights into the artist’s creative process.

For the communication of this exhibition, graphic designers Mortimer Lebigre and Ann Rieger used the typeface Le Beaune designed by Damien Gautier (205TF) and Garamond Premier Pro designed by Robert Slimbach (Adobe).

The Saint Patrick Centre in Downpatrick, County Down holds the world’s only permanent exhibition dedicated to the patron saint of Ireland.

Tandem were brought on board to refresh the exhibition, by conceptualising new films and animations, family-friendly activities and reflections on the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Creating a sense of arrival with a new vibrant exhibition entrance, we reworked the narrative content to make it more cohesive, taking visitors on a journey through Saint Patrick’s early life and captivity in Ireland. Our approach breathes fresh life into the story of the slave who became a saint, author of the first written word in this country and now a cultural icon known the world over.

We used Enigma Text as the crisp, clean impression resembles a calligraphy based script. The exhibition uses Patrick’s own words, and these were highlighted in the italic version of the typeface. As the type designer stated: ‘Its sharp detailing imparts an assertive elegance.’ We wanted this for the tone of voice of the space.

We used accessible san-serif FS Me, developed in association with Mencap, for the more heavy body copy that sits beside the title and headlines.

Visual identity and graphic and editorial design for the Saint-Nicolas event in Nancy, France, designed by Philippe Tytgat using the typefaces Almost Roman & Gothic, and Neutraface Condensed.

The exhibition Místicos. Santa Teresa de Jesús y San Juan de la Cruz, luz en el Siglo de Oro (“Mystics. Saint Teresa of Jesus and Saint John of the Cross, the light in the Golden Age”) was shown from October 2018 to January 2019 in the old church of the Society of Jesus in Caravaca de la Cruz, Murcia.

The exhibition and the accompanying publication talked about the mystics Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross and their presence in the art world, specially in the imagery and production of El Greco, Murillo, Alonso Cano, Ribera, Chillida, and Tàpies. The two figures that the show talked about, both mystics, had a story that was very bipolar; their writing was religious but so passionate that one could also mistake it for romantic love.

They walked a path between light and darkness, what was earthly and heavenly, a place full of dualities that was patent to their art. Therefore, we created a visual identity that would reflect these ambivalence, this dichotomy of feelings, and translated it to bold colours like bright white, a deep dark blue and blood red. The contrast was looking for this feeling of a clash between enlightenment and earthly passions.

This book is composed using the typefaces Suisse Int’l and Suisse Works, both by Ian Party and available from Swiss Typefaces. The condensed roman used in caps on the cover and for large quotes is Bordeaux (Letraset) by David Quay.

The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer (1877–1962) is one of the world’s most widely read cookbooks. The first edition shown here was self-published in 1931: Rombauer had 3,000 copies produced by A.C. Clayton, a local print shop in St. Louis that hadn’t printed any books before.

The book was illustrated by the author’s daughter Marion (1903–1976), who served as the art director at John Burroughs School at the time. After her marriage in 1932, she was named Marion Rombauer Becker. For the dust jacket, she made a papercut depicting Saint Martha of Bethany, the patron saint of cooking, slaying the dragon-like Tarasque. The design helped to sell around 2,000 copies in the first year. After the Rombauers found a publisher in 1936, The Joy of Cooking has been in print continuously, and has sold more than 20 million copies to this day.

The chromatic letterforms in black, blue and green are custom made, closely following Bifur (Deberny & Peignot, 1929), with overall bolder lines and a wider K than in the typeface. Bifur was designed by Cassandre. The French artist was born in 1901 in Kharkiv (Ха́рків), nowadays the second-largest city in Ukraine, and currently one of the sites of the terrible war.

Hat tip to Alexander Tochilovsky of the Herb Lubalin Study Center, who was born in Odessa.

In 1998, Scribner published a facsimile of the original 1931 edition, with a foreword by Irma’s son, Edgar Rombauer. The added text is set in Champion Gothic.

F37 Bella by F37 Foundry in use by designer Gianni Latino for the Agata nessun dorma (“Agatha no sleep”) exhibition in 2017. From Gianni Latino’s portfolio post (auto-translated):

XVI edition of the exhibition of costumes and theatrical clothes dedicated to our Patron Agatha of Catania. From 2 to 6 February 2017 in the halls of the Diocesan Museum of Catania. This year's title was inspired by the famous romance Nessun dorma for tenor from Turandot by Giacomo Puccini, to overcome the cultural sleep that often plagues our society. Curated by Maria Liliana Nigro.

Every year on and around May 15th, Madrid honours its patron saint, San Isidro Labrador, with concerts, food, and a big celebration in Carabanchel. In 2018, the identity and posters advertising San Isidro used Chulapa, a custom typeface produced by Joan Carles Casasín and Pablo Gámez based on an original idea by Silvia Fernández Palomar.

Chulapa es una tipografía de uso libre y gratuito, netamente madrileña, basada en la realizada por Ruiz de Luna para el callejero histórico de Madrid. Una tipografía de palo seco no geométrico con algunas características de la rotulación manual. Una tipografía desde Madrid para Madrid y el mundo.

(“Chulapa is a typeface for free use, clearly from Madrid, based on one made by Ruiz de Luna for a historic street map of Madrid. A non-geometric sans serif typeface with some handlettering-inspired features. A typeface from Madrid for Madrid and the world.”)

The poster uses Chulapa’s alternate elongated S, one of its many “handlettering-inspired features”. The illustrations on the poster are by Mercedes deBellard, and the typeface used for the bottom line is Gill Sans.

Cover art of Canticles of Ecstasy with sacred vocal music by Hildegard von Bingen.

Canticles of Ecstasy is an album by Sequentia, an ensemble for medieval music. Recorded June 1993 in the church of St. Pantaleon, Cologne, and released in 1994 by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG Classics in co-production with WDR Köln, it’s part of “a series of recordings of the complete works of Germany’s most important medieval composer, the abbess and visionary Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179)”.

The font used for the title shown on this version is Stephen Farrell’s Flexure (T-26, 1993). Cover artist unknown.

[More info on Discogs]

Angiolino en de Lente (“Angiolino and the Spring”) was written in 1921 by Arthur van Schendel, and published a few years later by publisher-printer Boosten and Stols in Maastricht, the Netherlands. This copy is clearly tainted by time, and the street library where I found it last autumn is not exactly climate-controlled storage either.

The colophon does not state a specific designer/illustrator for the cover, or a typographer for the interior. The text was typeset with Lutetia’s roman, italic and swashes. The initial caps are from Lutetia Open.

This fifth edition was published in 1943. The DBNL (Dutch digital library) has the publication history of this story.

The story itself is uses a common motif in pre-war Dutch literature: a (very sentimental) Christian variation on the concept of the noble savage. In this case the protagonist is a beggar with a pure heart. The story opening on page 5 (translated) is exemplary:

A sinful person is never completely sinful, just like a poor person, however poor, never has nothing whatsoever. How else could there be saints who, when they were little, screamed when they were hungry, and played in the dirt of the street, and maybe did things that no one but the Angels knows. But they had one spot that had remained white and when the golden rays fell upon it, their wickedness went away overnight, the drift [...]

Note that the text block (including initial) follows the proportions of a square.

Title page.

Opening page, detail.

First page of the story, detail. The title of the story is set in red italics between thick-thin rules, using swash caps and a swash terminal.

Colophon, detail. The initial form of C sits below the baseline.

The photo was taken in June 2012.

St. Vincentius is a hospital in Heidelberg, Germany, founded in 1910. The saint’s name above the entrance wasn’t carved manually, but sand-blasted, using a typeface. The font in use is ITC Edwardian Script. The English roundhand typeface was designed by Ed Benguiat and issued by ITC in 1994. It comes in two weights with many alternates, including two sets of capitals.

As part of the nod to the museum’s name, the identity includes illustrations in the style of stained-glass windows of Waters and some of his closer collaborators; Divine and Mary Vivian Pearce.

The Church of Trash is a branding project for an imaginary museum and exhibition celebrating John Waters’ work. The museum inhabits the Bell Foundry building in Baltimore, as the self-proclaimed pope of trash is a proud Baltimorean.

I decided to go with a somewhat unconventional typeface. After trying many display options, Juniper seemed to match how distinctive Waters’ work is. Since the logo has two C in it, I modified one of its tails to have an easter egg in the typography. As Juniper is so recognizable and has so many curves, I chose Museo Sans 500, a more traditional sans serif, to go with it.

The project was done at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) for a Graduate Branding course with the mentorship of Abbott Miller and Andrew Walters. See more images on my website.

O Auto da Compadecida, literally "The Compassionate Woman's Play", (the woman being the Virgin Mary) is a is a Brazilian television miniseries in 4 episodes, aired from January 5 to January 8, 1999. In 2000 the miniseries was released in film format, and was a critical and commercial success in Brazil and throughout South America. To celebrate its twenty year anniversary the series was rescreened in January 2020, with a new title sequence and updated special effects.

The beautifully illustrated, fresco-style opening sequence was designed and illustrated by Koi Factory and Caramurú Baumgartner.

Alias Harbour is used for title sequences.

Saint Patrick Retold is a historical essay that attempts to dispel the rumors around the tradition of Saint Patrick, in an attempt to analyze Patrick's life in a modern narrative.

Derek Thornton solely uses Europa Grotesk in his cover design, and uses repetition and cutouts to try to capture the true nature of Patrick. Europa Grotesk is Scangraphic’s version of Helvetica.

Cover adaptation for the audio book, read by Gerry O'Brien.

Sagre parrochiali are small fairs held on an annual basis, to celebrate the parish’s titular saint, and to foster fraternal conviviality. Claudio Piccinini designed a poster for this year’s sagra of the Parrocchia di San Francesco in Modena. Italy.

The title typeface is Carmin by Théo Guillard. A preliminary version was released via Future Fonts in May 2019. Piccinini comments:

The parish is dedicated to Saint Francis, so I found the innovative uncial shapes just fine for this occasion. And I liked how well Carmin paired with the paintings by José Benlliure y Gil (1855–1937), a masterful Spanish painter from the 19th century.

The text typeface is Quadraat by Fred Smeijers.

Detail. Piccinini mentions he had to add the ì (i with grave accent) himself. This character is not yet included in v0.1 of Carmin. On Future Fonts, type designers can sell experimental work that still is in progress.
Quadraat is used in roman and italic styles, with small caps and oldstyle figures.

What exactly is an ‘arts hotel?’ How might the arts weave through the entire experience? Could a hotel function as an arts venue? How about a platform for the local creative community? A bridge between disparate communities in the same city?

One Design spent the better part of a year exploring these questions, in the run up to the unveiling of Saint Kate, Milwaukee’s Arts Hotel.

The project has been an ongoing collaboration between One Design, Stonehill Taylor architects, and Marcus Hotels & Resorts. Our team led brand research, concept development, naming, and identity and experience design. Twelve months in, we collectively laid the groundwork for a brand new boutique property that is redefining how people experience hotels; as well as how visitors from near and far approach, celebrate, and support the arts and the spirit of the creative process.

The hotel is all about a celebration of contrast. Ogg and GT America form the foundation of the brand’s typographic voice as a visual reflection of hotel’s conceptual duality: the high and the low, the polished and the in-progress, the elegant and the utilitarian, the classic and the progressive.

Saint Kate—a nod to Saint Catherine, the patron saint of artists—has been designed from the ground up to celebrate all modes of artistic expression, and to serve as a platform for the Milwaukee arts community, a hub for locals, and a portal to the scene for travelers from afar.

Polskie Kolędy: Polish Christmas Carols, recorded by the “Chór Parafialny Kościoła Matki Boskiej Pocieszenia” (Parish Chorus of the Church of Our Lady of Consolation) from Williamsburg, Brookly, New York, released by Stella Records (New Jersey, USA). Undated.

The cover is signed “di Lello”—this is probably Richard DiLello who is credited with other artwork for Stella Records. The big blackletter is Engravers Old English, with the alternate y available in ATF’s version. The ogonek is likely a custom addition. The slab serif caps stem from Ludlow’s Karnak, which can easily be confused with Memphis. The informal upright script is yet unidentified—it’s a bit similar to Brody or Filmotype faces like Hamlet or Jupiter.

A banner with a question without a question mark (does that make it a rhetorical question?) and a vinyl-lettered prayer on the walls of a small chapel dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel. Location: on the grounds of the thrift store of Groesbeek, Netherlands.

Both texts are set in all caps in Oswald Cooper's Cooper Black. The lettering on the banner is based on the regular style, with a nice flat-top interpretation of the G, different E's and different angles for the O's.

The prayer is partly hidden behind a statue of Michael that just conquered an offensively negroid-looking devil. Here, Cooper Black Italic is set so tight that some of the word spaces seem to have disappeared.

San Antón is the patron saint of animals. In Madrid the tradition is to have your pet blessed by the saint, eat the saint pastries and see the parade called las vueltas de San Antón. This year Madrid’s City Council decided to maximize this tradition to raise awareness about animal care with a series of activities around urban wildlife and animal rights