A cabinet card by photographer Charles W. Bee (1871–1932) from approx. 1895. From Indiana Album:

Lineman George Keifer (1878–1953) of Petersburg poses on a telephone or electric pole for photographer Charles W. Bee. He wears a suit with climbing spikes or gaffs strapped to his legs. He holds a blowtorch. This view looks east from Center Street toward the Palace Lodge, a brick Italianate building constructed as a lodge hall in 1892.

Bee’s name is shown on the bottom of the card in Flirt (ca. 1886). The bold roman caps for “Winslow, Ind” are from a smaller size of Ronaldson Clarendon (1885).

TT Norms Pro was used in the branding of Intercom.

Intercom, Inc. is a software company that specializes in business messaging, providing businesses with a way to chat with their customers.

Between 2022 and early 2024, the Intercom website used TT Norms Pro in various styles. A second typeface used in this period (and before) was VC Honey. The rounded sans used for the logo appears to be custom(ized).

Nomo is a telecom startup that was born to put an end to the way things are done in the telecommunications segment. From that desire comes the name, NOMO – NO MORE. The brand’s proposal is not only to do things differently, but better. This implies the need to generate opposition and propose new paths.

In the telecom segment, the vices of visual language revolve around “neon lights” that mention speed (fiber optics), to three-dimensional effects in communication. The natural approach for Nomo is to propose something different from that. Every visual translation took place based on a simple proposition: in order to change, there must be the inevitable movement of opposition. Without destroying what already exists, but learning from what doesn’t work to do better.

The custom-designed logo for the project has the gesture of something jumping in a direction, like the letter N itself; or in the synthesis of a rubber ball in motion. Based on these observations, the letters N and M carry the brand’s personality and from these elements of extreme simplicity and strength, the entire visual expression of the brand unfolds. Whether with typographic treatments that follow the stimulus of non-compliance or hand-drawn illustrations, to the way this language is integrated into the application’s loading screen with animations.

The custom logotype was awarded a Certificate of Typographic Excellence and also was the Judge’s Choice in the TDC Awards. It also won Bronze Rayo in Brand Design and Logotype Design at the Latin American Design Awards (LAD).

Under the motto “Making Nothing into something”, and working closely with the Nothing® team, Seventy Agency helped craft the Nothing® Phone company’s long-term vision and formulate its focus on removing barriers.

The brand’s logo was designed to underscore Nothing’s minimalistic vision. To get people hyped about Nothing, Seventy Agency created a short video to reveal the logo and communicate the company’s manifesto.

Seventy Agency worked alongside Colophon Foundry to craft a suite of custom brand typefaces. They drew inspiration from the raw digital fonts and colours from IBM’s iconic mainframe era in the 1980s. Together they produced NDot, NType 82 and NType 82 Mono, which are used across brand packaging, web and the Nothing® Phone user interface. On the website, this collection of custom typefaces is paired with two widths of LL Lettera Mono.

Türk Telekom, a Turkish GSM and internet provider, used Chicago for its logo for twenty-two years, between 1995 (when it was separated from Turkish Post) and 2016.

Telephone booth in Antalya with stenciled Chicago

NC Electrical & Communications (NCE) are an electrical contractor operating in Western Australia. Like many businesses, their focus is providing the best possible service in their industry while the communication of their brand took a backseat. As the business evolved, the brand couldn’t keep up. The existing assets (or lack thereof) didn’t communicate the quality and reputation NCE had begun building. Neighbourhood Studio was appointed the task of revitalising the identity, without touching the primary logo.

After an in-depth process with stakeholders, the tone of voice and primary brand graphic was developed, leaving just the typographic combination in-need of attention. Shay Fletcher, Creative Director at Neighbourhood, found this the most rewarding part of the project. “As we know, typography is a critical part of graphic design. A typographer has meticulously crafted a typeface with a vision, and as designers we need to respect that, ensuring we’re presenting their work in way it was intended” says Shay. It’s the opinion of Shay and the Neighbourhood team that the right typography is critical in communications, and the combination of Pangram Pangram’s Neue Machina and CoType’s Aeonik Pro was the perfect pairing. Neue Machina was inspired by the aesthetics of robotics and machines, and is a font suited to the future of technology (according to Pangram Pangram). Pairing this with the incredibly modern and ultra-refined Aeonik Pro results in the prefect blend of contrast, character, refinement, and originality.

Take.Net was launched in 1999 as Brazil’s first mobile internet company, In 2016, Take introduced Blip, a platform for building, managing, and evolving chatbots and smart contacts, and was subsequently known as Take, Blip. In 2023, it rebranded to Blip.

Carbona (Plau, 2022) by Carlos Mignot is the brand typeface of the intelligent conversation platform. On the website, Carbona is used in the variable version with axes for Weight, Mono, and Slant.

From Interbrand’s case study (auto-translated with DeepL):

With every indication that it will become a unicorn, Blip is a Brazilian company that began its journey 20 years ago. From a cell phone store to the leader of the ring tone wave in the country, the company has always had as one of its main characteristics its capacity for renewal and evolution, and is today a reference in chatbots in the country. In addition, it is preparing to grow even more, incorporating new services and functionalities (such as social listening, a new expertise incorporated through the acquisition of Stilingue) and also seeking a big leap in its geographical operations. […]

On the one hand, we understood that Blip would no longer define itself as a chatbot or intelligent contact, but as a complete platform for intelligent interactions for companies, opening doors to new services, while maintaining conversations as its specialty. On the other hand, we preserved and evolved the brand's already powerful assets, such as its distinctive blue, the Blippinho, the humorous tone of voice, among other elements. […]

This evolution brought coherence and impetus to the brand’s new achievements, such as the arrival of the brand in Mexico, the incorporation of Stilingue, among others.

Detail of the Spanish-language website

Detail of the English-language website

The visual identity for rSIM was designed by Studio Blackburn, using Reply by Approximate Type (@approx.type). Description from the studio’s website:

rSIM is the worlds first truly resilient SIM card. Resilience in technology is crucial for Security, Safety, Sales etc. We teamed up to help support rSIM’s mission and build a brand around the idea of being “Always On”.

Technology can sometimes be perceived as empty and soulless but as this is a truly intelligent SIM card we wanted to give the product real character and personality, running with a concept of “It’s Alive” for the branding—rSIM thinks, therefore it is!

The green was inspired by the On Buttons, Lights, Switches… that feature on a wide variety of technology. Through the use of expressive animations, bold typography, as well as bringing the SIM Card to life we created an identity to clearly stand out in a sterile B2B crowd.

A leaflet advertising the Post Office’s radiotelegram and radiotelephone services that allowed you to send seasonsal greetings to family members or friends who were serving in the Merchant Navy or Royal Navy. By handing in your form at the Post Office or dictating it by phone before 22nd December (28 December for New Year) the message would be passed through one of the PO’s UK Radio Stations in the form of a telegram message.

Charges varied – any passenger or cargo vessel was 1/8d a word with those to RN vessels reduced to 1/1d a word, although in the case of the “Home Fleet” it was 8½d. Trawlers, drifters, coasters, cross-Channel and short voyage ships was a 1/– a word. The radiotelephone service using the PO’s Ship’s Telephone Service was quite involved as can be imagined and charges varied “according to the position of the ship” above 300 miles. Within 300 miles the charge was not cheap at 12/6d for 3 minutes.

The leaflet has no date but does have a designer shown – Roger Harris – with quite a stylish seascape and vessel on the cover and a dove of peace on the reverse side, carrying the olive branch. I suspect, given the design, this is a mid-60s version of the annual leaflet.

Source: venturethree.com venturethree. License: All Rights Reserved.

Omnes by Darden Studio is the logo typeface of Jio.

Launched in 2016, Jio is an Indian telecommunications company offering the “world’s largest mobile data network”. While brand company venturethree helped finding the name – Jio is Hindi for “live life” – Studio Schnauze was tasked to develop the corporate identity.

At the core of it is the logo. “Jio” is shown in the Bold weight of Omnes’s standard width. The name is placed in a circle, “the mother of all shapes – deeply rooted in the Indian culture”, according to Studio Schnauze. It comes in eight different colors, “to reflect the vibrancy and colourfulness of India”. The tagline “Digital Life” is added in all-caps Neue Helvetica.

Source: interbrand.com Interbrand. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.schnauze.studio Studio Schnauze. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.schnauze.studio Studio Schnauze. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.jujin.nyc JUJIN New York. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Jio logo on cylindrical set up boxes. Packaging design by JUJIN New York.

Source: edition.cnn.com Indranil Aditya/NurPhoto/AP. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Jio logo on the front of a shop in India

Source: fortune.com Debarchan Chatterjee—ZUMA Wire. License: All Rights Reserved.

A shop front at night, with an illuminated sign featuring the Jio logo

Source: www.fonearena.com License: All Rights Reserved.

The Jio headquarters in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Source: interbrand.com Interbrand. License: All Rights Reserved.

Probably the largest application of Omnes: the Jio logo at Reliance Corporate Park can be seen on Google Maps.

In Franklin Gothic, the letter O and the numeral 0 are similar, but not quite identical. This ad asks to dial “O” (for operator), when technically one had to enter the numeral zero. Also note the top-heavy opening quotation mark, sometimes referred to as sign painters’ quotes.

Of all the important things your child should learn, there’s one he should learn right away.

That’s how to dial “O” when he needs help in a hurry and doesn’t know the number. Because the telephone operator is a friend who wants to help and, what’s more important, can help in an emergency.

It’s important. It may even be critical. Because a frightened, crying child’s ability to dial “O” could save a life. Your child’s life. Maybe yours.

Tell your child not to be afraid to call. After all, 100,000 times a day, the sick, the injured and the frightened dial “O” for help. We know handling emergency calls is too important a job to learn it on the job. So our operators learn in practice sessions, where they receive simulated calls. How to get an ambulance. How to alert the fire department. How to contact medical help.

Our operators not only learn how to get the right help in a hurry but, what’s more, they know the incalculable value of staying on the line, reassuring the caller until that help arrives.

Of course, the extra time and training that operators receive in order to handle emergency calls costs extra money. But it’s worth it. Because you know there’s always help on the other end of your telephone line if you dial “O.”

AT&T and your local Bell Company.

The website satellitecharts.xyz examines current and past artificial satellites orbiting around Earth, pointing out how our terrestrial life became so dependent on what we sent out in space. With topics ranging from space exploration to space pollution, communication, and warfare, the data visualization functions as an index to unlock related stories. More than eight thousand satellites are plotted on the chart: the data show how many satellites are still operational or decayed, who launched them, and in which years.

Displaying such information (all typeset in Supreme) on a flat design allows the viewer to zoom in and out in time. In about 70 years of space history, we slowly built an extension of Earth's infrastructure above our head, an extra level of data collection and exchange. Satellites are essential technologies that must be constantly safeguarded, especially from human threats: jobs, services, social gatherings, transport, and communications are strictly dependent on the network of artificial bodies monitoring the planet. It is impossible to imagine our current living standards and global connections without the data transmission between satellites and Earth stations. This is what keeps the world spinning.

This is an ongoing project: more charts and topics will be added in the following months, focusing on the geography of launch sites, the past and current debris floating in space, and the names of satellites and missions.

“Wear out the Yellow Pages instead of yourself.

Let your fingers do the walking. Shop the Yellow Pages first.”

Britannic Bold (Stephenson Blake, 1905) in use for a series of ads for the Yellow Pages by Bell System from 1969. This was shortly before the updated Bell logo by Saul Bass was introduced (see the pitch video for the redesign, especially from 11:57).

The ads from this campaign don’t use the “Walking Fingers” logo, which was designed by Henry Alexander for the New England Telephone Company in 1962, and soon became the national trade mark for the Yellow Pages of every phone book. Instead, they show an open phone book with “Yellow Pages” in Univers and a receiver on top. In some ads, the walking fingers are present in the form of photography, though, and also appear in the slogan “Let your fingers do the walking.”

“Sure, you could live without the Yellow Pages.
(or without newspapers, or automobiles, or telephones, or clocks.)

Find it here first – fast. Action-People do.”

“There is something you won’t find in a copy of the Yellow Pages.
(Cobwebs.)

Action-People find it here first – fast. Let your fingers do the walking.”

“The Yellow Pages are unnecessary.

(Like water, and sleep, and food, and love.)

Find it here first – fast. Action-People do.”

Branding, website, and brochure for DAS Simplified, a leading American installer of distributed antenna networks, which maintain clear wireless communications within large buildings and structures. Illustrations by Mike Simpson and Max Phillips.

From design studio Liven Creative:

Strategic Imperatives are a future-focused provider of cloud-based monetisation, billing and provisioning solutions to the Telecoms industry. Liven Creative were asked to oversee the rebranding of the company and to provide ongoing support.

The choice to create an identity combining two sans serif typefaces with opposite characteristics is surprising, yet successful. While Graphik’s DNA uses circular closed shapes based on a geometric sans model, Logical takes a rather humanist and open approach. The corporate design supports the bold typeface choice with vibrant colours, playfully cropped photographs and subtle animations during navigation.

In the identity, created by Andrew Myles, creative director at Liven Creative, the two typefaces act as a tag-team, switching their positions throughout the entire website. Next to the two font families, the corporate identity is enriched by a display typeface called SI Alphabet, that's used mainly in backgrounds and in patterns.

Andrew Myles about the choice of Logical:

We thought the look and feel was just right for our client, it has a modern edge and some unique characters, the one element that caught my eye was the lowercase ‘g’. The brand concept for SI is all about DNA and the lower part of the ‘g’ looks similar to a strand of DNA. As soon as I saw it I knew it was meant to be!

SI Alphabet, used as an additional element in the DNA centered identity.

A tariff list from sometime before World War II for making radiotelephone calls from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies, then a colony that would become Indonesia in 1949.

The entire sheet is set in all caps, from two similar styles of different width. The majority of the text is in Blanchard, a wide robust roman issued by the Inland Type Foundry in 1900. It was also cast by Caslon as Morland. Type historian Hans Reichardt notes that Blanchard was carried by the Typefoundry Amsterdam as Columbia, but doesn’t specify to which of Blanchard’s six styles this applies. The line at the very bottom features a related condensed cut. This face is shown in a ca. 1930 catalog by Amsterdam under the name Smalle Columbia. This typeface appears to be a version of the Condensed style of Buffalo. Buffalo was a follower of Blanchard, introduced by the Hansen foundry in 1902 or earlier. According to Lane & Lommen, Columbia was Amsterdam’s version of Buffalo, issued in three styles from 1905 on. The wide style used on this piece of ephemera definitely matches Blanchard, not Buffalo.

The first 3 minutes of a long-distance call cost 30 guilders and more. In 1930, this amount had a purchasing power similar to that of 300 USD today.

From the Flickr stream of Maurits van den Toorn, who comments (translated):

Incredible […] I’ve heard stories from the family how sometimes people called […] at Christmas or another high day. Everyone would take turns saying as much as possible so that the whole conversation turned into a cacophony.

Welcome to dev wonderland! The digital pioneers of tomorrow aren’t motivated by stale promises of a work-hard, play-hard work environment. They seek a workplace that goes beyond platitudes and where freedom, learning, and fun prevail. Our task was to capture this spirit in a campaign that reaches software developers in their own habitat – using a mixture of gaming references, memes, and nerdy headlines, in a stylishly pixilated visual world.

The typographic concept is derived directly from sipgate’s day-to-day realities and where markers and whiteboards are the tools of the trade. Handwriting combined with the sipgate house typeface Px Grotesk creates a lively, personal recruitment campaign that refers to the constant “work in progress” of software development. This, in combination with the image world tailored directly to the target audience, gives the campaign a progressive and authentic look without relying on tired or out of touch recruitment clichés.

The new sign at Sama Phone’s shop in Sanaa, Yemen, uses Nasser, an Arabic font designed by Eyad Al-Samman.

Sim-shaped floor display sticker

Alias Elephant is used as lead typeface for Superdrug Mobile’s store displays and social media campaign, supported by Gotham Rounded.

Sim-shaped floor display sticker

Window sticker

Window sticker

Detail of a window display

Detail of store display

Source: piscastudio.com Pisca. License: All Rights Reserved.

Sonnet is a proximity fiber optics operator in Balenyá, Catalunya. Its logo is based on Gubia (2014) by Graviton. The corporate identity was developed by Pisca. Gubia is also used as the brand typeface on their website, for stationery and in stores.