Ludwig is a BBC detective dramedy series starring David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin. Wikipedia:

John Taylor (David Mitchell) is a reclusive puzzle maker who publishes puzzle books under the pen name “Ludwig”. His identical twin brother, James Taylor, is a successful detective chief inspector in the Cambridge police force. James has gone missing, and his wife Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin), a childhood friend of both brothers, enlists John’s help to solve the mystery. Pretending to be his brother, John infiltrates the local police station to investigate; inadvertently, he becomes embroiled in solving other cases.

John’s signature serves as both his pen name’s trademark and as the logo for the show. The font is Hummingbird Bold. The opening credits use various weights of Gravesend Sans.

Opening credits

Opening credits

A loose handwritten recreation of the signature in the first episode

Ludwig’s signature on one of his puzzle collections, as seen in episode 4, with an unidentified sans used for the cover title

“Two motifs merge into one lenticular poster. The image changes depending on where you stand — there is no fixed final image, only perspectives. Cultural belonging exists in relation to context, position, and viewpoint. 400 × 600mm”

Hyperculture is the diploma project of Dabin Kim made at ABK Stuttgart. The project captures the blurring of cultural boundaries, allowing different cultures to coexist in a globalized world in a “both–and” rather than “either–or” way.

Cultural practices in East and West are explored through everyday creations, shared media, and consumption. This shows how trends move between cultures, overlap, and are interpreted differently. The practices are presented through quotes, articles, digital images, and original visuals.

Dabin Kim describes the project as follows:

The publication is read from both sides: one presents an Eastern perspective, the other a Western one. Each examines how the other culture’s practices are adopted, influenced, and often misunderstood in different contexts.

Chapter 1 focuses on Language, Chapter 2 on Food, and Chapter 3 on Industry—each from both perspectives. Chapter 4 concludes with interviews that bring both views together.

The conversations reveal that cultural identity is increasingly hybrid and fluid, shaped through consumption and digital media. While visual cultural boundaries blur, deeper social differences and experiences of belonging persist.

Looking across language, food, and industry, the West often translates cultural elements into simplified, marketable forms, while the East actively transforms and hybridizes global influences.

Hyperculture emerges as both a driver of cultural reduction and a source of creative reconfiguration – simultaneously part of the problem and part of the solution.

Designed with Solæ and OT Neue Montreal Squeezed. 232 pages, 210×297 mm

Memojit (read the announcement on typo.social) is the unofficial successor to the emoji matching game Duomoji, which had disappeared. The game uses DJR’s Megazoid for the title and Gimlet Sans for the body text.

Screenshot of Memojit #54, showing the bone emoji correctly matched

Source: gallica.bnf.fr License: All Rights Reserved.

Issue 6, April 25, 1928

French weekly magazine Vu was the brainchild of Lucien Vogel (1886–1954). It was first published on March 21, 1928, with a logo designed by Cassandre. 637 more issues followed until May 29, 1940. Vu is best known for pioneering photojournalism, featuring works by contributing photographers such as Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Brassaï, Robert Capa, and André Kertész.

From the very start, it included a section titled “Les distractions de la semaine” (“The week’s distractions”) with various puzzles, or problèmes. Initially, the crosswords came with handwritten numbers, see this example from issue 5. In the sixth issue from April 25, 1928, Vu introduced solutions for the crosswords. These no longer used lettering. Instead, they were composed from a special font. Simply named Mots Croisés (French for “crosswords”), it offered blank and black squares as well as such with capital letters for clues and solutions, internal and external numbers, and border elements. Mots Croisés is shown in Deberny & Peignot’s Spécimen Générale from around 1936.

Last month, Poem released Phông, a digital typeface inspired by crossword puzzles. It was created by Khải Quang Nguyễn during his research residency at Atelier National de Recherche Typographique. While his primary inspiration were the puzzles in Phong-Hóa, a Vietnamese satirical journal first published in 1932, he also looked into Vu – which led me to Mots Croisés. Cảm ơn, Khải!

Source: gallica.bnf.fr License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail from issue 21, August 8, 1928

The other fonts in use for “Les distractions de la semaine” are worth a look, too. While the dancing fat face with the checkered fill used for the title is lettering, the thin caps for “Résultats” in the first image are typographic: they come from the generically named Antique Fine. The puzzles themselves are set in Beaudoire’s Elzevir, which started about 1860 as a commercial copy of Louis Perrin’s Caract. Headings are in the accompanying Elzevir Gras, which has more in common with Alexander Phemister’s Old Style Antique No. 7.

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Issue 21, August 8, 1928

The bold italic caps used for the solution du problème № 37 (above) are from Sphinx italique. One of the sans serifs seen in issue 249 from March 1933 (below) is Consul, which was available from several French foundries, including from Peignot & Fils as Antiques maigres larges.

Source: typedrawers.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail from issue 259, March 1, 1933

kaméidi kollektiv is a Hamburg-based project started by four friends who wanted to give the good old puzzle magazine a fun, youthful twist in the form of fragwürdig gazetta. Besides the classics – like picture riddles, number puzzles, and crosswords – you’ll find plenty of comics, illustrations, and short texts throughout the issue.

The whole thing revolves around this edition’s theme: sports illustrated (but in our own weird and wonderful way). The collective is made up of Janina Blum, Tim Wolff, Joana Haagen, and Lisa Pütz. Janina and Tim take care of the graphic design and layout, Joana and Lisa do the illustrations – but honestly, they all kind of do a bit of everything.

HipSoft. License: All Rights Reserved.

Jig Words is a word puzzle game developed by HipSoft and released on May 25th, 2005. The primary typeface chosen for the game art is Estro. Aldo Novarese’s casual slab with horizontal contrast is used with shaded caps for the letter tiles. Secondary UI elements are in Tahoma. See more of the game in Gage Brown’s playthrough video of the RealArcade release.

Source: www.youtube.com HipSoft. License: All Rights Reserved.

The most complete case study ever written on the critical subject of text typography, by one of the best contemporary British book designers. Andrew Barker describes at length the methodology he used when revising the typographic norms for the Penguin Classics series, arguably the most revered imprint for literary paperbacks in the United Kingdom. His lucid and thorough account is supplemented by a lengthy interview about his career as a book designer and the intellectual and ethical values that shape his work.

Andrew Barker is a graphic designer specialising in information design. He has been designer and design manager for Penguin Books for twelve years.

La typographie des Penguin Classics was written by Andrew Barker, with a foreword by Stéphane Darricau. It was edited and published by Bureau Brut and Stéphane Darricau, Toulouse, in an edition of 750 copies. Round is used together with Droulers, both by Bureau Brut.

The book has 92 pages and measures 170×180 mm plus flaps.
Materials: grey cardboard plus 90 g/m² Munken Print White 1.8 uncoated offset paper
Printing: Art & Caractère, Lavaur, southern France
Binding: sewn Otabind binding, Atelier Façonnage, Neuillé-Pont-Pierre
ISBN: 978-2-9580531-3-0

TT Firs Neue is part of the identity of the Mary Cassatt at Work exhibition.

Mary Cassatt at Work is the first large-scale exhibition of works by artist Mary Cassatt from 1998 to 1999, shown at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA. By considering her professionalism, her biography, and the wider Parisian world she inhabited, a richer and more complex picture of Cassatt develops, inviting contemporary conversations about gender, work, and artistic agency.

TT Firs Neue is used together with the museum’s standard typeface, Avenir.

Three pieces can be enough to relate a story to little children with these puzzles published by Les Grandes Personnes. Kanae Sato is the illustrator and author of the puzzles. Sylvain Lamy is the graphic designer who chose Orientation, the typeface used for the name of the game. What a surprise! But also evidence that Orientation can be used as a playful and friendly typeface, because of its stencil (a lot of pieces!) and geometrical forms.

Welcome Home is an ARG of a fictitious early 1970s TV show of the same name. Welcome Home was meant to be a lost media-type TV show, supposedly having had a four year run from Oct. 11th 1969 until it's abrupt pull from TV networks in 1974, all of which is documented by the website.to which a few years later the site documents about the aforementioned fictional television show.

Originally hosted clownillustrations.net, the alternate reality found a new home in welcomehomerestorationproject.com. The single-serving website is designed to do one thing, having the visitors find some clues, decipher and decode them, etc.

The game show logo appears to use an unidentified swashy Clarendon; merchandise and other “rare finds” use a varied selection of period-correct and incorrect typefaces and the website itself is set in Palatino and Times New Roman throughout.

Wally Darling cereal standee with ITC American Typewriter

A screenshot from the now defunct old website using a different typeface selection. The headline uses Corben. The type used for body text is not yet identified.

Title and main menu of Sega Swirl; screenshot from the Windows 95 version

Sega Swirl is a puzzle video game released in 1999 for Windows, in 2000 for Sega Dreamcast, and in 2001 for PalmOS (according to Moby Games); an Adobe Shockwave version was available back when you could play Shockwave games on the web.

On the Windows version, the appropriately swirly (and curly) Curlz is used for menus, and in-game text; advertising for all versions often uses Curlz. Curlz was made available only a few years earlier, in 1995.

The PalmOS version does not use Curlz, nor any other custom font. Probably a deliberate choice in order to fit the game onto some quite limited PalmOS models.

The game was released as both a teaser and a demonstration of the Dreamcast’s online play; the Windows version was freely downloadable, and the Dreamcast version appeared as a cover-disc and in various promo discs. The Dreamcast had a built-in modem and Sega Swirlz supported online competitive play, including with players of the PC version.

Gameplay screenshot (before i have made a move). Somewhat generic Windows 95 fonts for the button text and the running score.

Options screen. Note the Swirl motif replacing the O (the Swirl motif is not present in the font file).

Scoreboard

Promo art for PalmOS version

Dreamcast title screen (probably)

The LAG Gewaltfreies Zuhause Sachsen e.V. is committed to combating domestic violence and stalking throughout the German state of Saxony. In addition to the association, there is also the Domestic Violence Specialist Unit, which focuses on representing the interests of the organization of all violence and women's protection facilities and advice centres against domestic violence and stalking.

Studiokwi developed a new corporate identity for the LAG Gewaltfreies Zuhause Sachsen e.V. and the associated specialist center. The project included the modernization of the logo and the development of different logo variants for various applications and media, the conception and design of a corporate identity as well as the conception, design and implementation of the website (tba).

The associated print campaign was designed by Dina Osmanova (Vier für Texas) and advised by studiokwi.

Frankly, I don’t know much good to say about either cover or music of this 1977 Mike Batt album. I’m not into symphonic rock (and even then, this is not the finest example of the genre). The surreal artwork by Michael Hasted is at best a Magritte pastiche. And to top it off, the uninspiring typeface selection is used in an unimaginative way. But: designer Maurice Wilson of Studio Gerrard chose an interesting typeface for the album title: Cristal, an underrepresented typeface on this website with only three Uses before September 2023.

Cristal (Deberny & Peignot in 1953) was one of the first typefaces issued on transfer sheets, a Letraset precursor named Typophane. Once a frontrunner, the typeface was never updated with a digital version. Arlt Deco 2 and Scala Jewel Crystal are contemporary digital fonts in the same vein.

[More info on Discogs]

Escape the City assembles and organises various escape games in which you can explore a city as a team.

The typefaces Elma and Garnett help you unravel puzzles of outdoor escape games and treasure hunts through cities of France. Elma Trio by Philipp Neumeyer (available from TypeMates) is used for smaller headlines, body text, small data on the website and printed matter. This game marks the first official Use of Elma. Sharp Type’s Garnett (designed by by Connor Davenport) shows up in strong headlines.

Partnered with bright colours and playful illustrations, the identity of the game company is as fun and individual as their adventures.

Encodia is a biotech company looking to change the world. Their groundbreaking technology reverse translates proteins into DNA so that they can be read more easily by scientists. This technology allows scientists to be able to scale their research more easily to impact the most challenging diseases. If this technology can be harnessed to work quickly and on a large scale then it truly will be world-changing.

Encodia approached Mucho to create a new brand that felt more modern and memorable and to help tell their story. However, the primary reason for the brand refresh wasn’t to speak to the bio-tech audience and announce what they were doing as a company but was to create a brand that would appeal to great thinkers and hire great employees – biologists, chemists, business people, and innovators. Encodia want to appeal to the elite problem-solvers across a wide range of industries. They aspire to attract people who think differently about solving problems – In the same way Encodia reverse translates proteins into DNA, they really want to attract talent that views problems from a unique perspective.

We created a new logo for Encodia that combines the graphic structure of a DNA strand and the letter E, reminiscent of a puzzle. A supporting graphic language was developed inspired by M.C. Escher’s graphic drawings of impossible puzzles and scenarios. Copy and messaging supports this idea of solving problems to unlock endless possibilities in the medical world – Unlimit Biology and Found in Translation.

The front cover

Pocket Puzzle Word-Finds is a series of puzzle books published by Kappa Books.

“Word-Finds” and “Large Print” are set in Typography of Coop Bold, with “Pocket Puzzle” and the volume number using Futura Display. The word-find puzzle shown on the front cover utilizes Helvetica, which doesn’t match the contents of the book (in which ITC Avant Garde Gothic is used). The back cover additionally features AG Book Rounded Bold Condensed for the blurb and a condensed version of Univers for the information.

The back cover

Speak Low is a reissue of a hard bop/cool jazz album by Bill Evans, recorded September 18 and 27, 1956 in New York City and originally released as New Jazz Conceptions in 1957. This pressing by Riverside Records from New York was distributed in the UK (1967?) and Germany (1969), with a cover designed by German graphic artist Peter Penner.

I like how all the type is relegated to the edge of the cover, in a relatively small size – a solution that nicely corresponds to the title. The chosen typeface isn’t faint at all, though. First cast around 1892, Kalligraphia was reproduced in Ludwig Petzendorfer’s Schriftenatlas, Neue Folge (1903–1905), and rediscovered in the mid 1960s.

[More info on Discogs]

The track list, credits, and Alun Morgan’s liner notes are set in Akzidenz-Grotesk.

Source: www.flickr.com Mikey Walters. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Interchangeable World of Micronauts catalog, 1976.

The logotype and packaging design for Micronauts is one of the more prominent in-use examples of the Yagi typeface series, apart from its use in modified form for the logos of Sega (1976) and CNN (1980). From Wikipedia:

Micronauts was a North American science fiction toyline manufactured and marketed by Mego from 1976 to 1980. The Micronauts toyline was based on and licensed from the Microman toyline created by Japanese-based toy company Takara in 1974.

While the names of the action figures, vehicles and other accompanying items are set in Yagi Double, the Micronauts logo is based on the solid Yagi Bold, in yellow on black, with an added motion blur effect. Several of Yagi’s alternate glyphs were used to link letter pairs, and unnecessary joining strokes in N and U were removed. When used in black and white – and also in some other applications – the logo is set in Yagi Double, with alternates, but without further edits. Antique Olive is the brand’s main text typeface. It serves for the slogan “The Interchangeable World of the”, but also for descriptions and other typography on the boxes.

Source: www.ebay.com ZapWow. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronaut Phobos box, 1977.

Source: www.flickr.com Mikey Walters. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Microtron box (top), 1976.

Source: www.ebay.com finding_fun. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Giant Acroyear box, 1977.

Source: www.ebay.com ft88. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Galactic Cruiser box, 1976.

Source: www.ebay.com wheeljackslab. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Stratastation box, 1976.

Source: www.ebay.com ft88. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Neon Orbiter box, 1977.

Source: www.ebay.com ft88. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Thorium Orbiter box, 1977.

Source: www.ebay.com misb_only_collector. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Pharaoid box (front), 1977.

Source: www.ebay.com misb_only_collector. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Pharaoid box (back), 1977.

Source: www.ebay.com bella-koonia. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Andromeda instruction sheet, 1977, with text set in Helvetica.

Source: www.ebay.com christini_9. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Baron Karza box, 1977.

Source: www.ebay.com christini_9. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Force Commander box, 1976.

Source: www.ebay.com boonsart. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts jigsaw puzzle, Biotron vs. Giant Acroyear, 1978.

Source: www.ebay.com boonsart. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts jigsaw puzzle, Baron Karza, 1978.

Source: www.ebay.com nordev. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Hydro Copter instruction sheet, with text set in ITC Avant Garde Gothic.

Source: www.ebay.com aurorasjs. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Betatron box, 1978.

Source: www.ebay.com ft88. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Oberon box (front), 1978.

Source: www.ebay.com ft88. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Oberon box (back).

Source: www.ebay.com poochpucker. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Rocket Tubes box, 1979.

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Micronauts Hornetroid box (front), 1979.

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Micronauts Megas box (front), 1981.

Source: www.ebay.com toyluvin-neonboy. License: All Rights Reserved.

Micronauts Megas box (back), 1981.

West Barnum, Dave West’s extreme take on the French Clarendon, was originally drawn for Photo-Lettering in the mid-1960s. In 2005, Machine made ingenious use of its compact graphic lettershapes for the cover of Soul Patterns, an EP by Canadian deep house and techno producer Basic Soul Unit: tightly spaced and amended with tabs and blanks, they are transformed into pieces of a typographic jigsaw puzzle. The name becomes one big logotype, with interlocking lowercase letters in alternating primary colors. Barnum Block’s square dots were replaced with a smaller round ones, which are a better match for the knobs and the rounded counterforms.

For the title, Machine chose Berliner Grotesk, the lightweight cousin of Berthold Block, with the letters of the second word aligned to the cap line. Berliner Grotesk is also used for the track list on the back.

[More info on Discogs]

Beetlejuice puzzle. The green text in Treacherous Corners;

This line of Beetlejuice merchandise, made by Hasbro, was inspired by the 1988 Tim Burton film Beetlejuice. Featured here are a few items that use typefaces such as Meltdown and Treacherous created by Comicraft and a modified Caslon Antique for the Beetlejuice logo.

Monopoly, Beetlejuice edition. The line of text on top uses ITC Kabel, which is also the basis for the MONOPOLY logo. The two lines of text in the lower corners are set in Meltdown.

Back/bottom of the Monopoly box set, with most text set in Gotham, and Meltdown used for “Contents”.

“Floaty pen” set in Treacherous (the N in “PEN” is a flipped U from Treacherous Curves); use instructions are set in Chiller and the text on the pen itself uses Helvetica.