For its debut issue, the student-run magazine El caldo at Centro de diseño, cine y televisión pursued a tongue-praising theme. Inspired by Mexican Spanish ambiguities and all types of idioms deriving directly from the “lengua” (“tongue)” concept, El caldo’s debut edition brings together multiple contributions ranging from poems and short stories to photo essays and interviews.

Written contributions reunite essays by Berke Gold, Daniel Berkstein Guillemot, Sebastián M. Finck, Natalia Padilla, Karla Muñoz, and Radamés Vargas.

The typographic approach also found its way through these ambiguites, choosing plurality over monotony as a manner of illustrating the diversity upon which the community builds itself. Hence the cover title is set in an array of Black Mamba, Manicotti, Roslindale and Krsna; subtitles in BRRR and Druk; and body text in Lausanne.

Graphic identity, infographics and UI design for an exhibition about language in the Estonian National Museum.

In Estonian, the name of the exhibition is a wordplay based on that both language and tongue are marked with the same word. “Muuseum näitab keelt” could translate as “the museum presents language” or “the museum shows its tongue”.

The ASCII-art based design concept –– set in Courier New on all exhibition-related material –– evolved naturally from the fact that linguists use monospaced fonts for their profession.

[INSERT LINGUISTIC MESSAGE HERE] is a visual survey on language and the inner structures of systems of meaning. Its content is based on the fundamentals of semiotics and travels through language acquisition, word and image, language in film and performing arts, Internet speak, language and the Rave culture, and the destruction of linguistic systems in Automatic writings.

GT Sectra was chosen as the driving force of this project for being a stable typeface with low contrast but beautiful calligraphic forms. Paired with more mechanical GT Pressura Mono on folios and page numbers, this duo made for a strong push/pull of opposing forces that ultimately complemented one another.

Typography was celebrated throughout the project as the vehicle for communicating ideas on language, and the book itself was turned inside/out: the table of contents lives on its spine, and the end matter bleeds to the very back of the book.

More images of this project can be found on taisghelli.com.

Special thanks to Brad Bartlett.

“This first Dover edition [1953] is an unaltered reprint of the first edition [by Harper & Brothers, 1946].” There are yellow and blue versions. See also a later paperback edition.

“A Craving for Cool: Big companies are outsourcing ‘Cool’ to nimbler, closer-to-the-ground outsiders. They might as well farm out their souls.” — Fast Company, July/August 2006

As stated in Astrid Stavro’s website: 

The catalogue for an exhibition based on the translation of Rodoreda’s The Time of Doves into different languages has been designed in a format that conjures up the well-travelled nature of Rodoreda’s words. Eschewing the stay-at-home traditional book format, the catalogue is designed as a packet of eleven postcards, each featuring a different language translation of the opening paragraph of The Time of Doves. Each card is colour-coded to differentiate the languages and relate to a chart breaking down the distribution of translations of Rodoreda’s work around the world. Each postcard is set in a font that reflects a country’s language, for example Didot for France and Baskerville for the UK. There is also an A2 fold-out poster featuring covers of forty-eight editions of Rodoreda novels in different languages form the 1960s until now.

I find interesting this idea of finding a typeface that represents a language of a country. There are still some typefaces left to identify in the non-latin scripts. So if you know them, please give me a hand.

A history of the Icelandic character ð (eth) published by Crymogea. Toshi Omagari created this custom eth, which the book’s designer Gunnar Vilhjálmsson calls “the John Travolta eth”. The book also features what may be the first ‘fð’ ligature, designed by Fred Smeijers.

The typeface is Metro Nova, a revival by Omagari of Metro’s original forms, soon to be released by Monotype.