Designed for the Experimental Animation Visiting Artist series at CalArts, this poster features the work of Yaloo Lim. Ironica Sans utilizes the familiar skeleton of Helvetica as a base but subjects it to a series of rule-breaking formal transformations. By squaring traditionally rounded curves and terminals and implementing a unicase system, the design disrupts the visual expectations associated with classic grotesque structures.

The layout emphasizes visual rhythm through character-specific variations. The repeating O’s in the name feature contrasting outer and inner counter shapes, creating a subtle shift in formal perspective. In the motion sequence, the M transitions into a fluid, spaghetti-like form that bridges the letterforms, adding a dynamic and playful continuity to the kinetic composition. Small text is added in Effra.

Plain Text is a printed publication for exploratory type design, edited and designed by Lucas Descroix and Benjamin Dumond, and published by type foundry Plain Form. The second issue launched in July 2025.

From Plain Form:

From fiction to theory, from mystical analyses to visual works, Plain Text aims at exploring typographic imaginaries, moving beyond a strictly historical and technical framework, with a taste for the unknown and the dormant potential of writing.

This second issue includes contributions by Hervé Aracil, Tim Brookes (Endangered Alphabets), Aliona Ciobanu, Lucas Descroix, Benjamin Dumond, Mardi Forestier, Inscript festival, Elenor Kopka, Marcus Leis Allion, Pierre Pané-Farré (with HAW Hamburg students), Simon Renaud and Alec Vivier-Reynaud.

The texts of this black-and-white, bilingual publication are all set in the unreleased duo Basically Serif for the English and Basically Sans for the French. Additional information is set in Baskemo, also Serif and Sans, an automatically monospaced-and-skelefont’ed companion to Basically.

A number of display typefaces designed by Lucas Descroix and/or Benjamin Dumond are used throughout, for the title of each contribution as well as various emphasis moments. These include: Michaux, Grandmaster, Disc, Jester (in several styles), Ready Active and Clouded and an early version of the upcoming Ferro. Some unreleased display typefaces, either old or future, are also used but not shown here in the pictures.

The fiction work by Mardi Forestier is set in Exposure by Federico Parra Barrios. Imagined together with the author, the layout is an attempt at using an experimental typeface to underline and augment narration, its variations manifesting the idea of breath.

• English and French
• 80 pages, 210×297mm
• offset print on Munken Print White
• 1000 copies, July 2025
• ISBN 978-2-9597254-1-8

This second issue of Plain Text was kindly supported by Commercial Type, CSTM Fonts, Dinamo, Future Fonts, XYZ Type, and 205TF.

Title is set in Disc Heavy, while subheads use Michaux Light.

Left page shows works from Aliona Ciobanu (image in the center is a collaboration with designer Stefaniia Bodnia). Right page shows the work of Alec Vivier-Reynaud (featuring mushroom-printed ABC Camera).

Title is set in a early version of Ferro Fraktur IV. Images show works from Bettina Comte, Rüdiger Schlömer and Jonathan Mak.

Title set in Jester Fool (squeezed, tracked and slightly blurred).

Title set in Ready Active Regular (condensed and thinned).

Title set in Grandmaster Thin. The right page shows both designs and inspirations from Simon Renaud.

Left page shows designs and inspirations from Simon Renaud. Right page’s title is set in generously stretched Exposure.

A piece of fiction by Mardi Forestier, making use of Federico Parra Barrios’s typeface Exposure to manifest breath.

Title on the right page is set in heavily warped Jester Judgment (in black) and Jester Sun (in white).

Left page features Ohno’s Swear. Right page features Bureau Brut’s Totentanz.

Title set in Michaux Bold, for a conversation with French professor Hervé Aracil.

Left page shows student projects from HAW Hamburg, done under the direction of Pierre Pané-Farré (here the collective typeface Octagon Variable and A Type of Image by Fabian Stenzel). Right page’s title is set in Ready Clouded Bold.

An assemblage of artistic reflections and perspectives that grew through and together with the collective experiences of inhabiting a garden in Villa Romana, Firenze.

The book design uses Ouvrières by Laure Azizi (in affamées and agricultrices styles), Grancy by Minjong Kim, BianZhiDai (in Base and Ring styles) and Kiddo by notyourtypefoundry, FA_AAAIEMOADDP and FA_PTGWDOBSHK by Full Auto Foundry, and OPS Cubic by OPS Type. Lincoln/MITRE was used as well, but isn’t shown in the images.

In 2023, Henie Onstad presented the second edition of  New Visions, the Henie Onstad Triennial for Photography and New Media. The triennial takes the pulse of experimental practices within contemporary photography and new media. The second edition of the triennial presented works that push the boundaries of photography and automated image-making, to examine acutely relevant issues such as resource extraction, energy distribution and data harvesting. ANTI have designed the exhibition and the accompanying catalog.

The title of the triennial refers to Hungarian artist and photographer László Moholy-Nagy’s text “A New Instrument of Vision” (1932), which greatly influenced the development of experimental photography in the 20th century. In the early decades of the last century, photography enabled new perceptions of an increasingly mechanized and industrialized world. Similarly, today’s artists use photography to explore the entanglements with machines and processes of automation and extraction. The identity signals dynamism, fluidity and changeability. The holographic cover reflects the nature of photography, by capturing the light and its surroundings.

The New Visions catalog was edited by Susanne Østby Sæther. It includes a foreword by Caroline Ugelstad, a curatorial statement by Inga Lāce, Reem Shadid, and Susanne Østby Sæther, and an essay by scholar Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, in addition to artist presentations. Publishing by Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and Mousse Publishing.

The text typefaces used in the catalog include Helvetica (or similar) and Freight Text, with some words in PicNic.

Driven by a fascination with the alphabet as a vessel for unlimited visual concepts, systems and languages, Alphabetical Playground explores a wide range of themes concerning expression in text. It presents a series of graphic experiments that investigate and manipulate the building blocks of language. Beginning as a series of ongoing variable type experiments, unused project concepts and playful takes on existing letterform typologies, the book is an attempt to consolidate these varying ideas into a playful collection of Alphabets, a showcase of how far we can push the medium of type design and structure.

Ultimately—although it may not always be immediately apparent—everything on these pages is language. This work demonstrates how text allows us to embed our thoughts, beliefs and systems within it: a code within a code, a game within a game, a system within a system. It serves as a reminder of the alphabet’s enormous potential to transcend its fundamental purpose as a tool for communication and instead become a limitless space for creative expression.

Nigel Cottier’s new book of experimental type ideas is an investigation into how we can use the Alphabet as a container for countless graphic systems, conceptual ideas, and endless play.

With a foreword from Hamish Muir, Alphabetical Playground is his second book on experimental type after Letterform Variations, released in 2021.

The volume contains 696 pages and is printed in black and white offset on uncoated paper. It features thread stitching and a softcover with soft touch lamination, produced by Printmedia Solutions. The format measures 15.5×20 cm, and the content is presented in English. The book’s ISBN is 978-3-948440-87-9, and it is priced at €35 in Germany. To learn more or to purchase a copy, visit the Slanted website.

This experimental poster series by designer Nacho brings together typographic rigor and raw expression in a striking visual identity for Golda, a photo studio based in Madrid, Spain.

At the core of the project is Pilat, a geometric sans-serif typeface by General Type Studio (2018), used exclusively across the studio’s branding. Nacho builds the entire typographic system on Pilat’s clean, structured forms—establishing a restrained, modernist foundation.

That base is then deliberately disrupted: each printed poster is overlaid with a hand-executed gesture in silver ink, applied using a small bottle. The markings, reminiscent of graffiti calligraphy, inject a sense of immediacy and tension into the composition—challenging the order of the printed grid with a spontaneous, physical intervention.

The contrast between digital clarity and analog unpredictability gives the posters a dynamic presence, reflecting a broader interest in the interplay between control and chaos, identity and authorship.

More than a branding exercise, Nacho’s work here stands as an exploration of visual language and material process—pushing the poster format beyond communication into the realm of personal expression.

I’m Antoinette Chow, a designer in New York from Hong Kong. My portfolio website features two styles from in luuse’s Hershey Noailles typeface series — Hershey Futura Simplex Regular and Hershey Times Duplex Italic Light.

The Hershey fonts represent a fusion of technological innovation and design economy. Despite technical constraints, the font displays a range of stylistic expressions. They carry a personality of quiet utility that, upon closer inspection, reveals deep layers of inventiveness and adaptability.

Futura Simplex is used as the primary typeface, and Times Duplex is as secondary.

Plain Text is a printed publication for exploratory type design, edited and designed by Lucas Descroix and Benjamin Dumond, and published by type foundry Plain Form in January 2025.

From fiction to theory, from mystical analyses to visual works, Plain Text aims at exploring typographic imaginaries, moving beyond a strictly historical and technical framework, with a taste for the unknown and the dormant potential of writing. The first issue of Plain Text features voices from various backgrounds and generations, many offering a personal, even intimate or spiritual, approach to letters.

With contributions by Anne-Dauphine Borione, Lucas Descroix, Benjamin Dumond, Kirsten D. Dzwiza, Stefan Ellmer, Ayasha Khan, Zuzana Licko, Arman Mohtadji, William Skeen, Verso Wurm and Eager Zhang.

The texts of this black-and-white, bilingual publication are all set in the unreleased duo Basically Serif for the English and Basically Sans for the French. Additional information is set in Baskemo, also Serif and Sans, an automatically monospaced-and-skelefont’ed companion to Basically.

A number of display typefaces designed by Lucas Descroix and/or Benjamin Dumond are used throughout, for the title of each contribution as well as various emphasis moments. These include: Jester (in several styles), Michaux, Nostra Sett and Stream, Ready Active, Bygone and Clouded. Some unreleased display typefaces, either old or future, are also used but not shown here in the pictures.

The page numbers are set in Jester Hermit.

The publication opens with a number of dense pages showing hints of all upcoming contributions in their order of appearance.

Title set in largely squeezed Jester Hermit. The illustration on the right page shows Bonjour Monde’s Syne.

Title set in several layers of Ready Clouded Light. The article showcases the work of Anne-Dauphine Borione a.k.a. Daytona Mess, including her typefaces Sichem and Baleze Display, visible on the left page.

Title set in Michaux Bold. Left page shows a piece of lettering by Eager Zhang, part of her series “Family Portraits”.

Quote from Eager Zhang’s essay set in Michaux Bold for the English and Michaux Light for the French.

Title set in a generously squeezed Jester World. On the left we can spot bits of Ellmer Stefan’s asemic writing research.

Quotes from a conversation on asemic writing with type designer Stefan Ellmer ( The Pyte Foundry)

Title set in all-caps Nostra Sett

Title set in warped Ready Bygone Light, with a few floating outlined glyphs from Michaux Bold

Title set in all-caps Nostra Stream, together with works from Zuzana Licko

Title set in Ready Active Bold, with illustration by Arman Mohtadji. Left page shows bits of Tangly by Zuzana Licko / Emigre.

“Express Exegesis”, set on a circle in Jester Sun with a whole lot of negative tracking. The right page features the work of Julien Priez, a.k.a. Boogy Paper, with the unreleased Montreuil, his diploma project from Estienne ESAIG back in 2011.

SÜPER NORMAL is a magazine that focuses on typography but also on all design areas that typography touches. In doing so, it is a publication that includes experimental designs as well as text, asking questions, investigating, and visualizing these within each issue’s specific theme. It is a space that contemplates what normal is, searches for movement and excitement within normality, and questions ordinariness and rules.

The theme of the first issue is “Is it readable?” (“Okunuyor mu?” in Turkish). Inspired by the question, the first issue establishes a visual language that challenges norms and rules.

Idea, design and direction by Emre Parlak, using ABC Diatype Plus Variable.

The participants in issue 01 were Ali Emre Doğramacı, Christopher Çolak, Deniz Cem Önduygu, Emre Parlak, Erman Yılmaz, Esen Karol, E S Kibele Yarman, İbrahim Kaçtıoğlu, Onur Yazıcıgil, Okay Karadayılar, Ruslan Abasov, Sabri Akın, Seda Yüksel, and Umut Altıntaş.

The magazine was printed by Ofset Yapımevi on Fuoriso Magno Volume paper (115 g/m²). Close-up photographs by Deniz Cem Önduygu. Many thanks to Dinamo for the font support, Ofset Yapımevi for printing support, and all the participants who made the magazine possible.

Spread with a design by Sabri Akın

Text on the left in ABC Diatype Semi-Mono. The visual on the right is by Ruslan Abasov.

Spread with the contribution by Okay Karadayılar

Tentacular Writing is a summer course organized by Metaxia Markaki and Johanna Just of the ETH Zürich and Sila Karatas of the EPFL. The visual identity was designed by Onlab who describe the project as follows:

The summer school intended to experiment with the ways researchers and spatial practitioners perform writing in a non-hierarchical learning format. Set up as a collective retreat, the course offered an experience of community building and a collective exploration in creative writing and collaboration. Based on a typewriter-like monospaced font, the design is a radical and kinetic interpretation of the overall topic. It creates an original visual language for the call for participants as well as a powerful system for showcasing the results of the week online.

Life After Death is the title of an exhibition held during the Camper International Design Workshop in July 2024, with the motto “Think on your feet”:

For ten days in Mallorca, Fundación Camper invited a group of young international designers to experiment with the notions of obsolescence and circularity. A workshop guided by collective intelligence, resulting in the exhibition of several innovative design projects.

You can see more images of the workshop and learn more about it on the website of The Steidz.

The publication Wie kann CMYK durch die Kraft der 4 Elemente erweitert oder gar ersetzt werden? / How can CMYK be enhanced or even be replaced by the power of the 4 elements? was the outcome of a semester project of the experimental, analog printing seminar “4 Elements Printing” (winter semester 2021/22) as part of the ongoing research module Loose Library of Print at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle and was produced onsite at the university’s offset print shop. Marion Kliesch headed the course at the time.

The publication was created by the students Fanny Liebhardt, Greta Much, Hyelim Kim, Jasmin Zehe, Leonardo Alliata, Lioba Wachtel, Lore Elstermann, Louise Holtz, Luisa Kaiser, Melanie Hauffe and Nadine Härting, with support of the university’s printing press staff: Frank Just, Robert Marschall, Matthias Schwenke, Frank Robrecht and Philipp Hoffmann. It was set in HAL Timezone, published by HAL Typefaces. Printing ink was sponsored by Epple Druckfarben AG and Jänecke+Schneemann Druckfarben GmbH. Before printing, the printing plates were manipulated in different ways, for example, by exposure to water, fire, earth and sun; bathing exposed plates in a river for two weeks; or scratching the surface with screw drivers, rotary tools or sandpaper.

From the seminar’s instagram post:

FIRE, EARTH, WATER and LIGHT – comparable to an environmental disaster, the four elements break into the high standards of offset printing like forces of nature. This is because the machines and materials are all finely calibrated and calculated to ensure a uniform print image. Therefore, in offset printing, great care is usually taken to keep all environmental influences, such as temperature and humidity stable and to exclude the disturbing influence of light or foreign bodies like dust.

For our experiments, however, we virtually challenged the “catastrophe”: We deliberately used the power of the four elements. To do so, we initially started with analog experiments, with which we tried to narrow down the extent to which the modern printing process can withstand extreme conditions.

Strange to your Ears: The Fabulous World of Sound with Jim Fassett is an album originally released in the 1950s by Columbia Masterworks. Hosted by Jim Fassett, this album consists of a series of strange sounds presented in a peculiar manner, and has become a cult classic for its experimental nature.

The title typeface is Morris Fuller Benton's Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed contrasted with Century Expanded Italic. Other typefaces are also found in the dotted speech bubbles.

[More info on Discogs]

Terre Augmentée (Augmented Earth) is a realistic fiction project inspired by nature, highlighting the interdependence of living beings, using two layout principles. The first involves a system of layers to build and deconstruct the layout. The second principle offers a free reading path, with the narration unfolding through page references, in the same way as browsing the Internet is done from link to link. This experimental book is part of a research project into the concept of the ecosystem book, made at ESAG Penninghen.

Per Spelmanns Comeback is the parallel release to Postreptilia by Norwegian artist and poet Ivar Orvedal. His spoken poetry — excerpts from the Postreptilia book — are paired with a varied soundscape ranging from controlled minimalism to eclectic jazz improvisation.

Referring this wide scope of expressions, the album cover was designed by Modest [Rune Døli] using The Pyte Foundry’s Overdose and Errata, as well as gestural calligraphy done by Ellmer Stefan.

Publication design for “The Lottery”, a 1948 dystopian short story by Shirley Jackson.

Taking inspiration from the formatting of court reports, the different voices of the story are separated into three columns: one for direct speech, one for the author’s narration, and one for third people commentary and observations. This allows to create a visual representation of where characters stand at every step of the tale, while also providing a unique rhythm and a swinging motion to maximize the involvement of the reader in the dark unfolding of “The Lottery”.

The whole piece uses JHA Times Now in one weight and size, creating hierarchy through the grid.

Project developed in the typography module of the Master in Visual Design at Elisava.

Anerca, meaning "to breathe" or "to make poetry" in the Inuit language, is a Canadian small press poetry review. Edited by the trio Kedrick James, Wreford Miller, and Adeena Karasick, the sixth issue features contributions from poets Jill Duerr, Tim Lander, Li Min Hua, Jill Macdonald, Stephen Morrissey, and Christine Stewart.

The cover reveals a hand-drawn logo in outline, accompanied by illustrations. These two visual elements are supplemented by decorative stars (*) sparkling around the text, as well as make-shift guillemets using mathematical operators (< >) highlighting four titles. From the very first page, Anerca establishes itself as an experimental magazine, visually playful with its textual content.

The body text is composed of a set of four typewriter typefaces including Courier, and possibly “Imperial Elite” from an Olivetti Lettera 22 model. Two of them remain unidentified: the condensed version on Sessa’s page and the extended one, composing the mailing address on the back cover. They appear to related to Courier. The layout is complemented by Century Schoolbook for author names, along with University Roman, Pump, and Stam (all available from Letraset), used as illustrative elements on single glyphs and short words.

The layout seeks variation and freedom, incorporating unconventional text placements, shapes, alignment, spacing, as well as handwritings. Guided by the spirit of concrete poetry, the design transforms writings into visual language. Form and content are intricately intertwined, offering readers an intellectual and aesthetic experience through the pages.

The entire 6th issue of Anerca is accessible on JSTOR.

Letraset’s University Roman with Italic is used for “transit–ions”. It’s distinguished by circled i dots, which appear to be repurposed from the ring in Å.

The fish monster on the right page apparently is reproduced from pottery by the Mimbres culture.

The single Hebrew letter aleph (א) is from Stam.

The symbol on this page is a glyph of Mayan origin.

The picture on this page appears to be a Maori mask stencil.

The bold geometric sans is Letraset’s Pump.

Suite is a cultural program created by the Cnap (National Centre for Visual Arts) together with the ADAGP (Society of Authors from the Graphic and Visual Arts) in order to exhibit and promote debuting artists who were funded by one of their grants. Along the year, each of the selected artists is benefiting from having an exhibition organized in partnership with one of the selected venues scattered across the country… and sometimes abroad!

To present the year's program in a printed form, each year since 2015, the Cnap is commissioning Nantes-based studio Super Terrain to produce a compendium leaflet. But instead of printing a traditional booklet, the studio partnered with printing plant Média Graphic in Rennes to experiment with inks and water directly on the offset printers (see some pictures of the process below). The result are pages colored with organic gradients, colors blending together, dripping and fading away by hydrophilic reaction.

The only typeface used to design the booklet is the geometrical Euclid Flex, sometimes with some stylistic alternates activated. Euclid Flex is available from Swiss Typefaces.

Visual identity and website for Jardin C, an outdoor place in Nantes dedicated to experimental culture. As the garden is an outside venue, every event organized there is very sensitive to the weather. The website has indicators for the current time, temperature and humidity.

For the 2023 poster series, Elastik is the sole typeface used. It focuses on the concept of growth, utilizing the dots of the letter i as illustrative elements.

You/Dystopia investigates the theoretical link between artificial intelligence (A.I.) and identity. The project’s goal is to create an exaggerated, yet possible future, both utopia, and dystopia, to reconsider the possibilities of A.I., raise awareness of potential ethical issues arising from A.I, and reflect our current digital behavior and relationship with technology. Furthermore, the project emphasizes the importance of having protections in place to preserve our privacy and security. By doing so, we may assist in ensuring that the benefits of artificial intelligence are realized while avoiding a dystopian future.

The three main typefaces are NN Knit Grotesk by Rüdiger Schlömer, ABC Diatype by Dinamo and Proto Mono by Radinal Riki. Because the project is situated in a hypothetical future with the topic of a fictitious hospital. The fonts represent such basic, futuristic moods and tones, while typefaces like Knit Grotesk operate almost like LED pixels in a screen, where the screen may malfunction or break, displaying strips of horizontal lines adjacent to the screen, which also recall the technology part—A.I of the project.

The project was made in the Bachelor (Hons) program at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), supervised by Charis Poon.