Business Sustainability Toolbox. Innovative Wege zur Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie (“Innovative approaches to sustainability strategy”) is a 280-page reference book on the development of sustainability strategies for SMEs, corporations and start-ups. It was compiled and written by Julia Weber and Marcel Farkhondeh-Hoy and published by Vahlen (Munich) and Versus Verlag (Zurich).

Step-by-step instructions, templates and numerous illustrations are used to simplify the complex processes across four chapters, making it easier for readers to get started with the topic. Macan is used throughout.

A comprehensive archive of over 200 logos designed by Thinking*Room spanning the last 20 years, with essays from Eric Widjaja, Bram Patria Yoshugi, Ira Carella, and Ritter Willy Putra. Beyond a preservation of Thinking*Room’s storied portfolio, TRADEMARKS is a journey through the two-decade-long evolution of the logo design practice.

The book was edited by Kireina Masri and Handanu Ardhata, and designed by Thinking*Room. It features a debossed linen cover with edge printing, and contains 428 pages measuring 10×10 cm.

Jhambo Ink, a boutique publisher in London, brought out a limited edition in 1,000 hand-numbered copies of a double book bringing together Caroll’s Alice's Adventures Under Ground and Alice In Wonderland. Ana Santiago of Index designed the two books joined by their spines in a dos-à-dos binding. The book is richly illustrated by Brazilian artist Zansky.

While the box containing the book is text-less, the covers are exclusively typographic, showcasing Le Murmure in a playful elongated and top-aligned layout. The font is used throughout the book in both its normal shape but also often vertically elongated (without distortions) or horizontally stretched (with distortions). It's accompanied by Viskjø doing a great job for inter-titles in all caps as well as for the text of the stories themselves.

Catalog of the exhibition Hélio Oiticica: Delirium Ambulatorium, edited by Tuîa Arte Produção and presented at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Brasília and Belo Horizonte.

Oiticica (Rio de Janeiro, 1937–1980) was one of the most inventive artists of Brazilian Neoconcretism and the author of the term Tropicália—the title of one of his installations, which inspired an artistic and musical movement that gained international recognition.

Organized by Bruna Neiva, the book features texts by Moacir dos Anjos and historical photographs by Andreas Valentim, Cláudio Oiticica, Marcos Bonisson, and Sólon Ribeiro.

On the cover, the title appears only through embossed lettering (without ink), giving the book the appearance of a block wrapped in solid colors on all sides. This design echoes the monumental installation Magic Square #3: The Invention of Color, an open-air labyrinth of color and one of the exhibition’s highlights. Inside, readers are invited to interact with folded pages that function as visual and tactile interactive surfaces, in dialogue with works such as the Relevos Espaciais (Spatial Reliefs) and with the sensory dimension that Oiticica brought to art.

The book is set in Lygia and Lygia Sans, by Brazilian type designer Flavia Zimbardi. Both draw inspiration from the work of artists such as Lygia Clark and Oiticica himself, reinforcing the relevance of this choice.

The book was named a semifinalist for the Jabuti Prize in the Best Graphic Design category.

Like any other catalog published by the CCBB, the book can be read and downloaded on the institution’s digital archive.

Hotel Love is a novel described as “a creepy love story with AI” written by Austrian author Petra Piuk and published by Leykam Buchverlag.

The design, full of editorial details, was carried out by Vienna-based Sellerie Studio, who developed a series of lipstick lettering, as well as the layout and typesetting of the book. The designers comment on the book design (translated from German):

It was clear from the very first pencil sketches that we wanted to package this dystopian love story in a way that was as toxic as possible.
Glossy lip service: Our design “Read My Lips” (or not ...) went through several stages of development before it arrived at the (forest) bottom of reality — fortunately without exceeding its best-before date.

The typesetting uses MT Baskerville for the main text, Violeta for titles and highlights, and Input Mono Compressed for the ISBN on the cover and the book’s sections.

Austrian author Jaqueline Scheiber – best known for her essay collections and cultural commentary – launched her fiction career with Dreimeterdreißig, a love-and-loss story set in a Viennese altbau, where the 3.30-metre ceilings become silent witnesses. The debut quickly climbed into the top 10 of Austria’s national fiction bestseller list.

Sellerie Studio’s cover artwork showcases two phospho typefaces: the title stretches along a spiralling paper ribbon in the reversed-stress sans Antipol Variable, while the author’s name stands out in the warm italic serif Gyst. A pink-blue hourglass backs the paper ribbon which doubles as both measuring tape and falling sand. The cover fuses Vienna’s typical ceiling height (3.30 m) with the idea of slipping time to create an immediately legible image. Inside the book, playful Antipol headings are combined with Baskerville body text.

Catalog design for the Unverzollt art collective, located in the Speicherstadt in Hamburg, Germany. The design is inspired by the brick stones that characterize the area surrounding the studio. The catalog showcases 26 artists from various mediums, including animation, design, illustration, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, textile, and text.

The main typeface is Surt from Blaze Type; the typewriter style sans serif is the Latin part of Arbel Hagilda from Hagilda.

Brazilian publishing house Act. released a monograph dedicated to contemporary art in Latin America, titled Sonhos ao Sol: Miragens da Arte na América Latina (“Dreams in the Sun: Mirages of Art in Latin America”). It comprises art pieces created between 1900 and 2024 by more than 140 artists around the themes of the dream, the irrational or the fantasy.

The in-house designers chose Plain Form’s Ready Active for the title on the back of the book page numbers, initials, and the occasional typographically built ornament. The front cover features an abstract pattern created from the letters of the title used in an abstract overlapping central symetry.

The typeface used for all other typographical elements, from headlines, running texts and captions is Jean-Baptiste Morizot’s NaN Tragedy. Both subfamilies of Tragedy were used, the narrower and more contrasted Display for headlines and captions and the wider and sturdier Text for the long-running texts.

Kein & Aber stands for exceptional books and an unmistakable signature. Since 1997, this Swiss publishing house has produced influential voices in German and international literature: Truman Capote, Elke Heidenreich, Gerhard Polt, Hazel Brugger, Bryan Washington are among the publishers’ many cherished authors. Kein & Aber places great importance on the design of its publications, for each book shall match the individual tone its author has given it. The new brand identity embodies this commitment: it strengthens the publisher's brand and honours the distinctiveness of each work at the same time.

The tilted ampersand in the revised logo is an effective design finesse, which sums up the publisher’s unconventional yet clear identity. Without imposing itself, it creates recognition across all applications. The logo fits seamlessly into the individual book and cover designs from linen-bound to paperbacks without disturbing them. The contrast of the tilted ampersand between the upright capital letters works equally well in the full wordmark and the shortened K&A version used on book spines, in social media profiles and marketing collateral.

Molberger designed 17 new versions of Norwegian bibles, distributed by Det Norske Bibelselskap, the Norwegian Bible Society (part of United Bible Societies). The design is primarily built around a re-interpolated cut of the two STK Bureau families, Serif and Sans, fine-tuned for print on the thin crisp bible paper.

The Annual Report 2022 for the Rome University of Fine Arts (RUFA) was designed by Intorno Design (Guido Lombardo, Francesco Paolo Incantalupo, Davide Luccini).

The volume, which contains the narrative and cataloging of the best projects and activities carried out in 2022 at the Rome University of Fine Arts, is presented as a black-edged painted block decorated on the cover with silver signs and symbols taken from details of the inner pages (images, typefaces, pictorial lines of the illustrations and data visualizations).

The content is told from an analytical perspective where photography, illustration, and typography become tools of investigation rather than narrative, of exploration rather than discovery. The layout and typesetting, characterized by the choice of a single typeface, Tipiblu's Sempione Grotesk for CAST, take their inspiration from the graphic layout of medical x-rays. The photographic project presents some of the daily protagonists of the classes and internal offices in a taxonomic way by the use of synecdoche. The 4-color illustrations and monochrome infographics alternate between the storytelling of qualitative data according to a human-centered approach and the rational visualization of quantitative data. The alternation of different media of representation, stabilized by a selective choice of colors and typographic elements, encourages a slow and thoughtful reading of the complexity of contemporaneity, within the academic and artistic context.

Front and spine of Faber & Faber’s book jacket

Intermezzo is Irish writer Sally Rooney’s latest novel. The “exquisitely moving story about grief, love and family” was published in the UK in September 2024 by Faber & Faber. It comes with a modern and thoughtful book cover with bold graphic design and an unconventional mix of typefaces.

The book jacket was designed by in-house designer and illustrator Kishan Rajani (you can read about the process in an interview for GQ). It features three main elements stacked upon each other on a white background: the author’s name, in Maax Display Ultra, shown in the signature electric blue also seen on the book’s back and in much of the marketing campaign, which started months before the release. Underneath sits a square illustration featuring a man’s silhouette standing in the background while the legs of another walking man frame the picture in the foreground, with a fallen chess piece at his feet. The third element is the title, set in the open-source font Le Murmure, also in all caps.

The whole communication makes thorough use of the typeface duo and of the blue-white-black trichromy; on posters, tote bags, the dedicated website, coffee cups, enamel pins, stickers, T-shirts, etc. The publisher even organized live jacket design events where illustrators (Yuk Fun, Maria Ines Gul and Nänni-Pää) would draw custom designs onto jackets that were printed out with the illustrated square left blank.

The hardback version is available both with a white and a blue background. Review copies of the book were also sent out featuring a temporary cover that already featured the distinctive colors and fonts, but not yet the illustration.

The German hardback edition (translated by Zoë Beck) by Claassen follows the same basic design as the one by Faber & Faber, also featuring Maax Display and Le Murmure.

Front of Faber & Faber’s book jacket. “Author of Normal People” at the top is set in Futura and Futura Black.

The hardback book cover depicts a sitting dog and also features Maax Display and Le Murmure.

The back of the jacket continues the chess theme with blue and white fields. The typeface is an italic Garamond, possibly Garamond Premier.

Review copy of the book, on top of a tote bag

Shop window decorated with promotional posters and oversized chess pieces

Early birds with promotional cups and plastic bags

A jacket with custom illustration in the making

One of the jacket designs with custom illustration, alongside a bookmark ft. text in Futura and a chess sticker

Promotional enamel pin and a paperback edition of the book

The sign at this book shop features a magnificent rendering of the book jacket and its typography in chalk. Due to the medium of the blackboard, black and white are reversed.

The book plus a matching tote bag

The book and an advert on the London Underground

Book jacket and cover of the German edition by Claassen

Claassen’s limited first edition comes with blue edges.

From publisher Callwey (translated from German):

The Residential Building of the Year Award is the first award for developers in the field of multi-storey residential construction projects. The accompanying publication brings together the 50 best projects from German-speaking countries (DACH) selected by a jury of experts, categorized according to relevant topics. The opulently designed yearbook for the Residential Building of the Year Award 2021 is a great source of information and inspiration for architects and developers. The selected projects and solutions are explained in detail with plans, architectural photographs and descriptive texts. Interviews and short portraits of the architects and developers provide insights into the working methods and approaches of those involved in the projects.

Design studio Rose Pistola handled the design of this excellent book about award-winning residential construction, using a combination of TWK Everett and TWK Everett Mono by Nolan Paparelli. See also their design for the previous editions from 2020 and from 2019.

The publication svoja is an enhanced collection of the texts and articles Ema Müller has written for Vogue Czechoslovakia over five years. “The texts are enriched with scans from my diaries, photos from my childhood, photos from my mobile phone, and photos from the wonderful Jakub Gulyás, which we took together during those five years, mostly in his living room,” Müller explains. “I write notes in the book and draw with a pink marker, just like I do on my Instagram. It is created as one big story full of all possible emotions and feelings of a young woman who keeps getting lost, searching and finding herself, and who has her flies but also butterflies.”

What sets svoja apart is its thoughtful design elements, meticulously curated to resonate with readers on a personal level. The title “svoja” is deliberately placed both on the front and back, symbolizing the universality of the book’s message. Her handwritten notes, reminiscent of Instagram captions, add an intimate touch, inviting readers into her world with open arms. Yet, perhaps the most striking aspect of svoja lies in Müller’s intentional positioning of her own name. While subtly present with translucent UV varnish on the front cover, Müller’s name takes a backseat to the overarching theme of individuality and self-discovery. It’s a powerful statement, signaling to readers that svoja is not just a book about the author’s journey, but a mirror reflecting their own experiences and aspirations.

In svoja, Müller invites us to embrace our uniqueness, to revel in the beauty of our individuality, and to celebrate the journey of self-discovery. With each page turned, svoja serves as a reminder that we are all protagonists in our own stories, navigating the twists and turns of life with courage and grace.

288 pages, 150×205 mm

From publisher Callwey (translated from German):

The opulently designed yearbook for the German Residential Construction Award 2020 is the big information and inspiration book for all decision-makers in the residential construction industry. It brings together the best realized residential construction projects and concepts in various categories, selected by a jury of experts. Inside, the selected projects are presented in detail and clearly with plans, architectural photographs, descriptive texts, and brief portraits of the developers.

Design studio Rose Pistola handled the design of this excellent book about award-winning residential construction, using a combination of TWK Everett and TWK Everett Mono by Nolan Paparelli. See also their design for the previous edition from 2019.

Design by Principle and KUDOS have designed a website and identity for Chris Shepherd.

Chris Shepherd is a Houston-based chef, restaurateur, and entrepreneur who has been recognized with one James Beard Award, two James Beard Nominations, and “Best Of” list appearances in GQ, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Esquire, and many others.

The typefaces used are Degular, Denton, and Store Norske Ja.

Business cards for Ikon, printed duplex on GF Smith Plike, featuring gold foil text and gold edging. The logo is set in Tungsten and the body copy in Quarto.

From Schilt Publishing:

Produced in conjunction with the FotoFest Biennial 2020 exhibition, African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other brings together 33 artists of African origins from around the globe whose works challenge traditional notions of Blackness and transnational histories in relation to concepts of liberty, rights, and representation.

In their unique practices, the featured artists turn an eye to social, cultural, and political conditions that inform and influence concepts of representation as they pertain to image production and circulation in Africa and beyond. These artists question the ways in which subjectivity is constructed and deconstructed by the camera, and in the process, reveal legacies of resistance by those who defy traditional ideas of sexual, racial, gender-based, and other marginalized identities.

Kade by David Quay is used throughout in two weights. The typeface used for body text is Wei Huang’s Work Sans.

The cover image is by Rotimi Fani-Kayode.

Shàngó Gothic Medium as used on the book jacket of A Fate Inked in Blood. The first volume of Danielle L. Jensen’s Saga of the Unfated was published by Del Rey.

From the author’s page:

A shield maiden blessed by the gods battles to unite a nation under a power-hungry king—while also fighting her growing desire for his fiery son—in this Norse-inspired fantasy romance from the bestselling author of The Bridge Kingdom series.

Cover design by Ella Laytham, using an illustration by Eleonor Piteira. The secondary typeface is Agency Gothic CT, which has an alternate flat-top A in the lowercase.

Impossible Langhe is a tourist novel, half guide and half story, written by Pietro Giovannini and enriched by photographer Maurizio Beucci. It explores and tells about the Langhe, an area populated by epic stories, visionary heroes and breathtaking landscapes. Impossible Langhe was designed by Elisabetta Azzalini at Undesign and published by Fondazione Radical Design of Charley Vezza, directed by Axel Iberti. The book won Bronze at the European Design Awards:

The volume, conceived as a travel notebook, is designed with the intent to combine the spirit of the Langhe, its historical, cultural and geographical specificities, to the contemporary. The dual nature of the book is explained by the structure of the graphic design that divides each of the nine chapters into two complementary sections: the first one, detailed and analytical, is dedicated to the routes, the second one, narrative and characterized by a colorful background, is reserved for the stories and tales of these places. In the titles the Voyage font exasperates the shapes of the typefaces used for the labels of the wines, creating, with a strong contrast, an elegant but contemporary effect. The palette of typefaces is then enriched with the famous Egyptian character designed by master Aldo Novarese and produced in the late fifties by the renowned Fonderia Nebiolo (a non-random association for a project that tells the story of a land of vineyards and wines), Piedmontese excellence recognized worldwide. The result is a visual and textual journey that leads to the discovery of one of the most characteristic and famous places of Piedmont, from an unusual and special point of view.

Titles are set in Voyage. The text typefaces are Prensa and Suisse Int’l. The contents pages additionally use all-caps Egizio Bold and Triptych Grotesque.