Koralle lichtfett (1926), the extrabold inline style of Schelter & Giesecke’s Koralle family, in use for presenting a dozen of “solid compasses for pupils”, probably from around the 1950s. Note the dots in the Ü umlaut that are integrated into the cap height.

Visual identity and bumper for the first edition of the film festival Farol, held at CineSesc under the theme of “O cinema entre a memória e agora” (“Cinema between memory and the present”).

The exhibition’s visual identity was inspired by the colors of nautical signaling and developed through a combination of analog and digital techniques, seeking to connect with the exhibition’s subtitle by creating dialogs/articulations with the graphic memory of tickets and admissions from street cinemas. We started from the circle as a point of light, which appears in fragments, sometimes revealing, sometimes concealing, sometimes multiplying itself. The graphic system was composed using the Jean-Luc typeface, developed by Atelier Carvalho-Bernau in 2010, inspired by the opening title sequences of the films Made in U.S.A. and 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle, by Jean-Luc Godard.

Studio Blanchet designed the logo and flyers for “L’Échappée théâtrale” (in English: “Theatrical Escape”) by the La Déferlante theater company, which is a series of workshops for teenagers on the topic of gender equality. The logo created by Emmanuelle Floris is using a beta version of Montreuil Play. The complementary typeface is Neue Haas Grotesk.

Argo, the journal of the Slovene Museums, is the most important publication of Slovene museum experts dealing with art history and the museology of ancient and medieval periods. The National Museum of Slovenia, which established the journal in 1962, today co-publishes it with the Association of Slovene Museums and the Slovene Museum Society.

Papers are in Slovenian with abstracts in English. The journal is published twice yearly and distributed within international museum networks. Back issues are available and can be purchased at the museum store of the National Museum of Slovenia or ordered by email.

As headline typeface, Argo 2025 68/1 is using Sokoli, designed by Valentina Lupi and published by Dotless Type. It is paired with FF Tisa and FF Tisa Sans, both designed by Mitja Miklavčič and originally released by FontFont. The designer of the magazine is Ajdin Bašić.

Bruno Tomberg. Disaini leiutamine / Invention of Design was an extensive retrospective exhibition and monograph of Bruno Tomberg’s work at the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design in Tallinn, curated by Kai Lobjakas. The exhibition offered an overview of Tomberg’s nearly six-decade-long career, exploring for the first time in greater depth his roles as both designer and educator. It also brought a wealth of previously unknown and unexhibited materials to the public.

Bruno Tomberg (1926–2021) was an interior architect, designer, artist and educator, recognised as a leading voice in Estonian design during its intense development from the early 1960s onward. Through his diverse creative, pedagogical and administrative activities, he embodies the story of Estonian applied art and design.

For this occasion, the display typeface Bruno 100 was created by Tüpokompanii. The font is based on Tomberg’s poster designs from the 1970s, strongly reflecting his style as a product and interior designer where diagonal lines and rhombic shapes were frequent motifs throughout his career. A fuzzy texture was added to the type in the graphic design (by Indrek Sirkel), and exhibition wall texts were roll-painted over stencils to achieve a fabric-like surface to echo the materiality of Tomberg’s textile work and rug designs. The accompanying typeface is Ladna.

While Bruno 100 was custom-made for this project, it can be licensed to the public, so feel free to reach out to Tüpokompanii if you’d like to use it.

We don’t really know the story of this one. What follows has a fact or two followed by some educated-but-potentially-misleading guesses.

Google Translate suggests that this is a birthday greeting for Rudolf von Larisch, the important Austrian calligrapher, editor, and type designer. Von Larisch would have turned 70 on April 1, 1926, which means this was most likely printed in that year. In 1926, Rudolf Koch would have been 49—and the Koch Antiqua caps (1922) in this piece would have been still new(ish).

We can’t tell if the heavier weight cap E used to augment some cap Us were semibold (1924) or bold (1926). Von Larisch and Koch certainly knew one another. Was this a gift from the latter to the former? We can’t say. Maybe this is just a thing printed by someone who had this type. But what we can say is that this appears to be a proof, marked up with spacing notations, so it probably never made it to its intended recipient (unless Von Larisch marked this up after getting it).

Now, how about those red and yellow hand embellishments? They sure look like the sort of crosses that one would see from the Offenbach Workshop. But a cross is not a complex structure and we aren’t authorities on Koch or his hand. So, we asked Dorothee Ader at the Klingspor Museum and Dan Reynolds who knows a lot, too. We trust them. Neither knew this piece or was convinced it was by Koch or his workshop. Dan pointed us to the greeting Koch made for Von Larisch’s 75th. So, all we can say for sure is that this was made for Von Larisch and it is a beautiful thing.

Le Jouet Enragé, 2nd edition, 2011, translated by Isabelle and Antoine Berman

Rouge Gorge is a series of books by Parisian publisher Cent Pages, designed by SpMillot. It includes several books written by Roberto Arlt (1900–1942). Shown in this posts are:

• Le Jouet Enragé, a short novel first published in 1926 as El juguete rabioso (Mad Toy)
• Le Petit Bossu, a short novel first published in 1933 as El jorobadito (The Little Hunchback)
• L’éleveur de gorilles, a novel first published in 1941 as El criador de gorilas (The Gorilla Handler)

Cover titles are set in a modified version of Matthew Carter’s Skia. In the latest editions, the interior pages were redesigned to be set in Arlt (by Loche, PampaType), a type family that is inspired in Roberto Arlt's literary works.

See also the previous post about Greguerías by Ramón Gómez de la Serna, published in the Rouge Gorge series in 2005.

Le Petit Bossu, 3rd edition, 2012, translated by Jean-François Carcelen and Georges Tyras

L’éleveur de gorilles, 3rd edition, 2013, translated by Jean-François Carcelen and Georges Tyras

Branding agency Societas worked with football club VfB Stuttgart 1893 on updating the club’s brand identity. From their case study:

At the heart of the project was the ambition to reconnect the club’s DNA – Verein für Bewegungsspiele (Association for Movement Games in English) – with a contemporary visual system that reflects both tradition and progress. Together with VfB, we worked on the brand strategy, design principles, and a refreshed visual language that gives movement a clear direction, while leaving core elements like the crest, club colors, and red hoop untouched.

‍The new identity introduces a custom typeface (“TWK Concordia”), a new wordmark “VfB 1893,” and a refined use of the horse, Stuttgart’s heraldic symbol. These elements are rooted in the club’s history and values while creating a system that strengthens clarity, cultural relevance, and adaptability across platforms — from the stadium to the city and beyond.

The VfB’s new brand identity was designed by Societas with the help of Friends & Foxes for the social media part, and Frederik Mair for the type animations. The brand typeface TWK Concordia is a customised version of TWK Ghost, designed by Nolan Paparelli and Nina Faulhaber. It is an all-caps font with alternates featuring cut serifs and a few additional ligatures. The wordmarks features the VfB ligature with oldstyle figures, set on a steeper italic angle.

VfB Stuttgart 1893 will receive a SunExpress aircraft with special livery in the club’s design.

This 1921 ad for etching materials uses multiple typefaces by celebrated designer Otto Hupp. Not only does it feature the striking and unusual Keilschrift, but also two weights of his text face, Hupp-Antiqua. At first I thought the interchangeable Hupp-Unziale with its bar-topped A was also shown here, but then I realized I was looking at an umlaut in “Ätze” (acid).

Poster and program flyer for Forum Neues Wetter, a series of talks in Grimma, Saxony, organized by the office for spatial design laufende quadratmeter (lfm2, Christian Göthner) and artist collective Situation Room (Sven Bergelt and Kai-Hendrik Windeler).

DIN A2 (42×59,4 cm), folded to A5, printed with two HKS spot colors.

Custom title lettering combined with the headline typeface Gamuth by Max Esnée and the body typeface Friedl by Camelot Typefaces.

Description of the book by the publishing house Spector Books:

Artist Gabriele Stötzer was the powerhouse of Erfurt’s lively underground. After Wolf Biermann’s expatriation in 1976, she herself was held on remand and put in the Hoheneck women’s prison. Her one-year imprisonment did not silence her though. After her release, she ran an underground gallery and established a group of female artists. On 4 December 1989, she was the first to occupy the Stasi building in Erfurt together with a collection of like-minded people. More than twenty-five years after the event, Stötzer researched her own past and that of thirty-two fellow artists as recorded in the Stasi archives. She has written a factual report on the different forms of observation that were used, exposing the internal logic of the surveillance regime. Her text is supplemented by original documents from the files, photos from the underground as well as found footage from the 1960s to 1980s.

288pp. with numerous color and black and white illustrations, perfect bound softcover, 21×26.5 cm; German

ISBN: 9783959053174

The book was written by Gabriele Stötzer and edited by Anne König. Designer Malin Gewinner used Stempel Garamond for text, together with the yet unreleased Streetfutura and Rike Mono for titles and marginalia, respectively.

From design studio Teel:

Sporthotel Lorünser is one of the world’s oldest ski hotels, founded in 1927 in the Austrian Alps. We partnered with the Lorünser to modernize their brand and craft a timeless, atmospheric website experience.

From refined typography and microinteractions to rich photography and immersive video, the experience transports visitors into the world of Lorünser, offering a true sense of place and alpine sophistication.

From The Brand Identity:

Lorünser lacked a clear, cohesive identity and digital presence, and so to establish one, they reached out to Austin-based independent branding and digital studio Teel. The timing was right, too; as they neared their 100th anniversary and completed major room renovations, the moment felt ripe to “elevate the brand across the board,” CEO & Co-founder Cameron Neckar tells us. ⁠

This showcase beautifully pairs Editorial Old with Museum, a new addition to the Pangram Pangram family. Smaller texts are set in Avenir.

Banner, 6.2×6.5 m

Re:start – Gestalterische Positionen für bessere Zukünfte is an exhibition project at Moderne Galerie – Saarlandmuseum and explores industrial design responses to climate change and social transformation. Curated by Mark Braun, the show features projects by young designers and recent graduates focusing on material, energy, mobility, and circular systems.

Titling is set in Helvetica Now, which is part of the museum’s visual identity. Adjustments to the t have been made to space the title even tighter. Dot Matrix by Moonbase Press is used for subheadlines in reference to industrial and digital display systems. To accommodate missing characters (such as German umlauts and French accents), a customized version was created for the exhibition texts (poster features the original version). Body text is set in Helvetica Now.

The typefaces are used across media, including posters, banners, and exhibition graphics.

Curation and exhibition design by Studio Mark Braun. Leonie Zebe served as curatorial assistant. The image on the poster is by Dean Weigand.

Posters, DIN A0 and A1

Exhibition view, including wall text

Exhibition view, including object text

A closer look at the wall texts featuring the custom diacritics for Dot Matrix

Digital poster

The U70 building, located at Uferstrasse 70 in Basel, Switzerland, is a former warehouse and logistics facility that has been transformed into a vibrant mixed-use space. Previously known as the Gondrand building, it was repurposed by the Canton of Basel-Stadt to accommodate activities in sports, culture, gastronomy, and various trades.

The signage was designed by Swiss studio Hauser, Schwarz. On their website, we can read:

For the repurposing of the former storage building at 70 Uferstrasse, we developed the signage concept. The question of what to do with the massive Gondrand lettering posed a challenge: should it be completely removed or replaced? In the end, we decided to “erase” parts of the individual letters to obscure them, thereby referencing the overarching theme of “Transformation” in the renovation. The clearly structured typography and the reduced graphic elements ensure intuitive orientation within the building. The color scheme and typography blend harmoniously with the raw aesthetics of the building and its port surroundings, supporting its new identity.

For the occasion, the pictograms were designed by the studio, in perfect harmony with the Maax Mono and Maax Mono Stencil fonts, designed by Damien Gautier and distributed by 205TF.

Vol. XVIII, no. 1, 1932, cover

The Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse was the official organ of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Edited by Sigmund Freud in Vienna, it began publication in 1913. Over the years, the journal sported a number of different designs and typefaces. Starting with volume XVIII, no. 1 from 1932, a new typographic design was introduced, featuring Koch-Antiqua.

At least initially, covers and title pages were exclusively set in Rudolf Koch’s roman with the characteristically small x-height, in two weights, mager and grob (bold). Koch-Antiqua is used with its compact umlauts, the then usual ligatures for pairs like ch and ck, and the double hyphen – see all three peculiarities combined in the word “Über-Ich”.

Previously, until vol. XVII, no 4, the journal had a similar layout composed from Walter Tiemann’s Tiemann-Antiqua, another “artist’s typeface” that – like Koch-Antiqua – was produced by the Klingspor foundry in Offenbach, Germany.

The final issue with Koch-Antiqua on the cover was No. 4 from 1937. In 1938, when Austria was annexed into Nazi Germany, Freud had to flee the country, and the journal could no longer be published there. From 1939 to 1941, it was continued from Freud’s exile in London, merged with Imago into the Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und Imago, then featuring De Roos’s Erasmus-Mediaeval for the cover typography.

There are various adaptations and interpretations of Koch-Antiqua available in digital form, but none that covers the full style range of the original, complete with extras such as the tall alternates, decorative capitals, and swash forms. Ralf Herrmann seeks to fix this. He’s currently running a campaign to crowdfund a faithful, full-featured revival, to be released under an open source license, eventually free for anyone to use. If you want to help get the campaign over the finish line, you can do so. But you need to hurry: it will end very soon, on June 3, 2025, 3:26 PM CEST.

Vol. XVIII, no. 1, 1932, half-title page

Vol. XVIII, no. 1, 1932, title page. Unlike on the cover, the Ps pair isn’t kerned here. On the other hand, we get to see the ch ligature.

Vol. XIX, nos. 1/2, 1933

Nicht nur Mütter waren schwanger. Perspektiven auf Reproduktive Gerechtigkeit & Zeit[en] (English: “Not Only Mothers Were Pregnant. Perspectives on Reproductive Justice & Time[s]”) is an online project based on a book with a similar title, Nicht nur Mütter waren schwanger. Unerhörte Perspektiven auf die vermeintlich natürlichste Sache der Welt, which was published by Edition Assemblage in 2018.

The project poses questions such as: How have reproductive rights in Germany changed over time? What influence does the global rise in authoritarianism have on the desire to have children and family constellations outside the norm? How can we keep spaces of exchange on reproductive rights open, despite the various crises that favor isolation instead of solidarity?

Concept and curation by Alisa Tretau, Moooon
; design by studiokwi; plain language images by Simone Fass, and sustainable and accessible web development by visiert.

OpenAir Gampel is one of the biggest music festivals in Switzerland and takes place every August in the beautiful Canton of Valais. In 2023, Steiner Grafik redesigned the identity of the festival exclusively using RT Rondelle for all applications ranging from posters and animations, to the website and on-site signage. Since then, Steiner Grafik has refreshed the visuals every year while keeping the framework consistent, providing a sense of positive familiarity.

A special number of Elektrische Bahnen – Zentralblatt für elektrischen Zugbetrieb und alle Arten von Triebfahrzeugen mit elektrischem Antrieb – with an annual look at the “electric railway system of the present”. The journal, published by the Berlin-based Verlag für Sozialpolitik, Wirtschaft und Statistik GmbH, still had an internationally based consulting editorial board that included Sir Philip Dawson in London. As well as articles on electric railways and tramways, including a series on Berlin’s BVG, there are numerous adverts for companies and products associated with the electrification of the railway.

The front cover has some marvellously electric “lightning” lettering as well as an advert for the major German electrical and engineering company of Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG based at Siemensstadt in Berlin. Siemens-Schukert had been formed in 1903 when the long established company of Siemens-Halske AG acquired Schuckertwerke. Both were subsequently based at the Berlin ‘works suburb’ of Siemensstadt. The advert shows one of the Bo-Bo electric locomotives built for the Deutsche Reichsbahn as well as one of the streamlined diesel-electric railcars.

“Elektrische Bahnen” is lettering based on Dolmen, an expressionist typeface designed by Max Salzmann and first cast by Schelter & Giesecke in 1922. Some of the letterforms deviate from the original design, most notably in the terminals of C and S, compare to this 1925 use. The triangular crossbar of H and the narrow A and N were available as alternates or size-specific forms.

The subtitle below is set in all-caps Akzidenz-Grotesk, with the information about editor and publisher in Annonce / Aurora-Grotesk V. The issue title in red uses Futura fett. The ad in the lower half features the mager weight – note the compact umlaut in the heading.

Elektrische Bahnen was first published in 1903 (see volume 2 from 1904) and is still in print today. Dolmen was introduced with the journal’s relaunch from 1928, initially under the title Zentralblatt für elektrischen Zugbetrieb (“Central journal for electric train operation”).

Poster design for the open call “Posters Against the Right,” initiated by Verlage gegen Rechts.

The poster carries the message “Kein Platz für Hass” (“No Place for Hate”) and deliberately plays with the viewers’ perception. By overlaying many colors, the text is partially obscured and seems to disappear within them. This emphasizes the idea that in a diverse and vibrant society, there is no room for hate.

General poster

Design Parade is a double festival for product design and interior architecture organized by Villa Noailles. It takes place annually in Hyères and Toulon in Southern France. The visual identity for the 2024 edition was once more designed by Marc Armand. This time, he worked with Image Future, a new release by Guillaume Goron. In some of the applications, text is shown in capitals from an extrabold weight, filled with a pattern. These glazed ceramic letters were made in collaboration with Maximilien Pellet. The accompanying sans is Emmanuel Besse’s Enduro. Both typefaces are available from Production Type.

Toulon poster

Hyères poster

Hyères catalog cover

Detail showing the glazed ceramic letters

Detail showing the glazed ceramic letters

Toulon catalog cover

Detail showing the glazed ceramic letters

Catalog spread with contents

Catalog spread

Catalog spread with works by Ronan Bouroullec