O Céu da Língua is a play that transforms the Portuguese language into living matter. Using words to talk about identity, history, politics and invention, the monologue is also a rehearsal, a manifesto and a game; where speech becomes body, rhythm and thought. The staging proposes visual listening: projections, moving typography and textual landscapes accompany the flow of language on stage. Starring Gregorio Duvivier and directed by Luciana Paes, O Céu da Língua has premiered in Portugal with sold-out sessions and toured 12 cities. In Brazil, it has already toured 33 cities, drawing nearly 300,000 spectators.

The publication visually reflects the structure of the performance. We drew inspiration from old Brazilian literacy workbooks to create a visual language that echoes the content of each act. Classic typographic blocks coexist with doodles, notes, erasures, drawings, and handwriting.

This project is shortlisted in the Editorial category at the 2026 Latin American Design Awards.

Interpretation and text by Gregorio Duvivier. Direction and dramaturgy by Luciana Paes. Direction assistance by Theodora Duvivier. The graphic design is by Maria Cau Levy and Ana David of Estúdio M-CAU. See more on m-cau.com.

Bergen Internasjonale Teater, or BIT for short, co-produces and presents Norwegian and international performing arts, and places particular emphasis on projects that stimulate international collaboration and work across artistic genres. BIT takes responsibility for highlighting the latest in dance, theatre and performance, including the facilitation of a relevant discourse program.

In 2025, Norwegian studio PART was commissioned to create the new identity, coinciding with the move to a permanent home at Sentralbadet after 14 years of nomadic operation. As stated on their website, they drew “inspiration from the energy and cohesion surrounding modern dance and theater. From the potential for friction and the fluidity of dance. From the unpredictability and suspense that come from not knowing exactly what will happen.”

This inspiration is clearly reflected in the use of the typeface Bertin, designed by Roman Seban and distributed by 205TF. Acording to PART, Bertin “piques curiosity and brings the unknown to the fore through expressive filtering.” As secondary typeface, for certain practical details, they used Neue Haas Grotesk (Christian Schwartz, Commercial Type).

STADT:ENSEMBLE Ludwigsburg is a project that translates urban space, performance, and cultural narratives into a highly structured visual system. The branding reflects the collective’s character through a scalable and flexible communication system designed to adapt to various media and formats.

The visual identity is rooted in a deliberate typographic tension: by separating “STADT” (City) and “ENSEMBLE” (Collective), the logotype emphasizes the relationship between the urban environment and the people who activate it.

An underlying grid, derived directly from the typography’s stroke weight, establishes a consistent structural logic. This grid activates a system of nine thematic icons. Each icon represents core values of the ensemble and is designed to scale and expand into “image containers.”

These containers allow photographic content to become an inherent part of the identity, merging imagery with the geometric structure of the system.

The result is a clear, adaptable visual identity that combines typographic precision with conceptual flexibility. The system ensures strong recognition while allowing enough space for the dynamic, ever-changing nature of the cultural collective.

Right Grotesk and Right Serif are paired in a program for a play celebrating the 150th anniversary of Teatr Polski w Poznaniu, in a design by Anna Morawiak and Bartosz Włodarczyk:

This major milestone for the people of Poznań became an opportunity to create a unique publication, inspired by the theatre’s red and gold interior and its distinctive form. In its earliest days, the theatre was commonly called “Pieścidełko” – we embraced that spirit in the book’s design and typography. Huge thanks to all amazing people who contributed to this project.

Right Grotesk and Right Serif were designed by Alex Slobzheninov and are distributed by Pangram Pangram. The stage photography in the book is by Maciej Zakrzewski and Adam Brzozowski. The images showing the book itself were shot by Michał Jaszkowski.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by altpapiersammler and tagged with “fleischmanngotisch”. License: All Rights Reserved.

Otto Hendel (1820–1898) was a German publisher in Halle/Saale who took over the publishing house and book store founded by his grandfather Johann Christian Hendel (1742–1823) in 1768. In 1886, he founded the Bibliothek der Gesamt-Litteratur, “to make the best of the literary works produced by civilized nations, both past and present, available to the German people in attractive and affordable editions.” After thirty years, the library had grown to include 2,165 volumes.

Shown here is a translation of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, published around 1890. Title and author’s name are set in two sizes of Fleischmann-Gotisch. Cut by Johann Fleischmann in the mid-18th century and known at Enschedé as Duits (or Duyts), it was later recut at Flinsch as Fleischmann-Gotisch and at Krebs as Holländische Gotisch. The word “von” is added in some Schwabacher. The grotesk caps used for the publisher’s name probably are custom drawn.

Man of La Mancha is a 1965 musical adaptation of Don Quixote, with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion, and music by Mitch Leigh. The libretto was published by Random House in 1966, featuring an illustratin by Al Hirschfeld and Caruso Roxy for the title. Its amorphous glyphs allowed the jacket designer to knead the words into place, squeezing the second M down to x-height so that the two lines fit snug together.

Detail from the inner flap of the book jacket, with credits in Bodoni

The program flyer for Reizende Leute, diese Boulingrins (es brennt) at RambaZamba Theater translates the escalating energy of the play by Georges Courteline into a strong graphic object. Courteline’s biting satire about a bourgeois couple in a permanent state of exception becomes, in this production, a physically present and exaggerated confrontation. Performed by the inclusive ensemble of RambaZamba Theater, consisting exclusively of actors with disabilities, the conflict gains a particular directness and intensity.

The flyer was designed by Stahl R, who are responsible for the theater’s visual communication. In its folded state, it functions as a compact program medium with clearly structured text blocks and a distinct hierarchy. Once unfolded, however, the object transforms. On the reverse side, a large scale poster motif appears.

The color scheme is radically reduced to red and black, with black printed on glossy red paper. This materiality enhances the visual impact and creates an almost alarming presence. A coarsely rasterized close up of a face dominates the surface and begins to flicker through its visible halftone dots.

For the typography, Reply by Approximate Type is used. The typeface appears compact yet expressive, with distinctive details that give the title a tense and independent character. Set in large scale and pushed across the image, the typography actively intervenes in the composition. It does not remain neutral but confidently asserts itself within the space.

In 2025, Julien Gosselin took charge of the prestigious Parisian Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe, previously known as Théâtre de l’Odéon. Atelier Choque Le Goff was commissioned to design a new visual identity for the theater. Playing with words, they used big type and expressive layouts, mixing letters and illustrations by Martin Groch on colorful backgrounds. The cast for the new identity is as follows: Insitu, Exposure, and Neue Haas Grotesk.

Poster and flyer series for the successful dance theater production Ascochinga. La vida todavía (“Ascochinga: life still goes on”) staged by the municipal theater company Teatro Comedia in Córdoba, Argentina. Illustrated and designed by Santiago Guerrero, using Reforma 1918 (PampaType), part of the tailored type family originally made for the National University of Córdoba.

The first illuminated characters, primarily created for big-city entertainment enterprises, consisted of electric bulbs arranged to form the outlines of letters. BVH BDot imitates this idea and is a perfect fit for KOSMOLINO, the children’s program of Theater KOSMOS in Bregenz, Austria.

From the website of designer Anuschka Fink (translated from the German):

Hubert Dragaschnig once said:
“A theater production requires many different stars – whether it’s the office, administration, stage design, music, acting, directing, technical crew, wardrobe, makeup, etc. – and when all of these serve the same sky, namely the author and the play, a cosmos emerges.”

Inspired by this, I designed a graphic concept for both Kosmodrom and Kosmolino. The two visual identities were meant to share similarities while still remaining distinct and striking. The stars – or the light – of the stage backdrop became a key design element. Reduced to a single “dot,” it symbolizes the stars of the theater cosmos.

Poster design by Paula Scher of Pentagram, featuring Garage Gothic typeface by Frere-Jones Type.

Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew was presented by the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park from August 10th through September 5th, 1999, together with Molière’s Tartuffe.

From Playbill:

Tartuffe concerns a venal and libidinous religious hypocrite who holds a household under his thrall until being exposed for what he is. When first presented in 1664 France, the sharp satire created such a furor that the pious of Paris suppressed the play. It was not performed for another three years, and then in an altered version.

The design duo Image Format, based in the south of France, created the visual identity and the 2024–2025 season programme for Théâtre des Salins – Scène nationale de Martigues. They developed a strong artistic direction applied across all printed and digital communication materials, including posters, the season programme, and signage. To strengthen the project’s typographic identity, Image Format used the typeface Trois Mille, designed by Marc Rouault and available from Sharp Type, a contemporary type family with a wide range of styles and widths, bringing character and visual presence to the theatre’s communications.

Poster design by Paula Scher of Pentagram, featuring Nobel typeface by Frere-Jones Type.

Shakespeare's Measure for Measure was the first production presented by the New York Shakespeare Festival / The Public Theater 2001 series in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater. The production directed by Mary Zimmerman joined the already announced The Seagull by Chekov in a new version by Tom Stoppard, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline.

Viking Press, 1976

Just like Butley, Otherwise Engaged is a play by English playwright Simon Gray. It premiered at the Queen’s Theatre in London on 10 July 1975, again with Alan Bates as the star and Harold Pinter as director.

When Viking Press brought out a book edition in 1976, Roy Kuhlman was once more commissioned with the jacket design. As with Butley, he worked with a posterized photo (by Donald Cooper) printed in flat colors. This time, he went with John N. Schaedler’s Super Cooper as the typeface. Kuhlman’s design was reused with different colors and rearranged typography for Penguin’s paperback edition, see below.

Penguin Books, 1977

This week, Fantagraphics published Roy Kuhlman: Reluctant Modernist, “the first ever collection of the groundbreaking design of Grove Press designer Roy Kuhlman” who died in 2007. I haven’t seen Steven Brower’s monograph yet, but we’ve posted about a dozen of book covers and jackets by Kuhlman to Fonts In Use so far, documenting his eclectic typographic palette.

Here’s another jacket design by Kuhlman, for a play by Simon Gray, published in book form by Viking Press. Butley was first performed in 1971 at the Criterion Theatre directed by Harold Pinter. The photo by John Haynes depicts actors Alan Bates and Richard O'Callaghan. The title typeface chosen by Kuhlman is Mania Shaded.

The Teatro Stabile dell’Umbria (TSU) is a public theater institution in the Umbria region of Italy, officially recognized by the Ministry of Culture as a teatro di rilevante interesse culturale (“theater of significant cultural interest)”. Established in the mid 1980s, the TSU has produced over a hundred theatrical works, both regionally and beyond, in collaboration with many prominent directors. It operates across many of Umbria’s historical theaters, promoting theater and dance, supporting both national and international artists, and contributing significantly to the cultural life of the region.

In 2024, the Teatro Stabile dell’Umbria introduced a new visual identity to mark the milestone of its 150th production and to project a more contemporary, dynamic image of the institution. Designed by Due Studio, the rebranding was applied across posters, billboards, tickets, and other materials. A key feature of the project was the use of photographs from TSU’s historical archive, reinterpreted through a bold and flexible graphic system that highlights the theatre’s dual role as both pillar of cultural heritage and a space of ongoing innovation.

From Due Studio’s website:

The new visual identity of Teatro Stabile dell'Umbria for the 2024-2025 season celebrates the 150 TSU theatre productions with a bold and contemporary design. A geometric and dynamic system that evokes the theatre wings, both container and mask for the images of the productions from the historical archive of the TSU and the typography. A versatile visual system that reflects dynamism and innovation.

One element of this new identity is the adoption of Suisse Int’l Condensed and Suisse Works, whose clarity and flexibility support the dynamic system of shapes and imagery. These typefaces not only provide a strong visual backbone for the 2024–2025 season but are also adopted in the 2025–2026 campaign, where they are paired with a striking fluorescent green. This continuity strengthens TSU’s refreshed identity, while the bold new color highlights the launch of a new season of productions, all within a contemporary brand language that continues to evolve.

Fourteen booklets were designed for the 2024-2025 season.

Stadttheater Gießen, or casually also called Theater Gießen, is a municipal theater and the cultural center of the German town Gießen. With two stages and 700 seats the theater hosts and entertains its guests with plays, musicals, operas, operettes, and dance performances.

Their typography uses CJ Type's geometric sans Dunbar Tall across all mediums including posters, brochures, website, and online presence, as well as for the “STADT THEATER GIEßEN” logo in all caps behind the brand’s iconic squiggle lines. The logotype is set in Dunbar Tall Medium.

Dunbar includes OpenType features catering to German language use, such as stylistic alternates for capital umlauts, as well as contextual ligatures for ch and ck.

The main theater building’s neo-classical architecture with Jugendstil influences from around 1907 reflects a preservation of the traditional entertainment artforms whilst appealing to younger contemporary audiences. The brand's typographic style plays on a similar appeal with its modernity: Dunbar was inspired by Erbar-Grotesk, a typeface designed in Germany by Jakob Erbar who first started exploring sans serif design in the early 1900s, close in time to when the theater in Gießen was built.

The visual identity complements its clean geometric typography with organic interactive squiggle lines unique to each performance. This component was developed by Patrik Hübner as a fluid generative design system.

These dynamic patterns mirror the gestures, voices, and movements of the stage, evolving in real-time to reflect the collaborative and exploratory spirit of the Stadttheater.

In 2022 the theater celebrated its visual refresh with a launch event. Visitors could interact to generate their own personalized squiggles, which blurred the lines between audience and performative play.

The logo combines caps with a lowercase eszett. CJ Dunn decided not to include an uppercase eszett. The font is a static version in which the letters R S T look different from the variable font version.

Identity design by Skogen for Trøndelag Teater, sporting a bespoke variable display type named TT Display and STK Bureau Sans, both designed by Smuss Type Kiosk. From Skogen:

An incredibly exciting opportunity to leave our mark on one of Trondheim's cornerstone cultural institutions. We created a new visual identity for Trøndelag Teater, drawing inspiration from the theater's history dating back to the 1800s. During that era, tickets, programs, and performance posters were typeset with rich typographic layouts on brightly colored paper—an aesthetic that has shaped the expression we've created.

In collaboration with Smuss Studio, a custom typeface family was developed featuring five distinct styles, each radiating its own personality and capable of shifting character to match the production it accompanies. Set within a flexible system that accommodates everything from heavy classics to children's musicals to newly written drama, Trøndelag Teater now has an identity that honors their heritage and ambitions while embracing all their future innovations.

Design studio Ordinary People created a poster series and accompanying booklets for the 2024 Youth Creative Belt, organized by the National Theater Company of Korea’s Youth Drama Research Institute.

Throughout the series, the Latin is typeset in my typeface Megascope and the Hangul in AG MangdangDisplay from AG Typography Institute. I absolutely love how the designers took the letterforms and broke them down into linear elements, making them feel like something between a sketch and a schematic drawing. The complexity is mesmerizing!

Ordinary People describes the project as follows:

Youth plays are often abstract, open-ended, and undefined, reflecting the evolving identity of adolescence. This is expressed through outlines that give shape to form by way of incomplete and fragmented strokes, with the elements ultimately coming together to create the key visual for the 2024 Youth Play Reading Performance.

Each performance poster—“Half,” “How the Giraffe Travels,” and “In Your World”—distills the mood of each piece into keywords: “memory,” “farewell,” and “encounter.” These words were then visualized through various combinations of dashed, dotted, and intersecting lines. Bringing diversity to linearity empowers the visual identity to expand with distinction, while highlighting the unique character of each work.

Les Tragédiens is Jean Desbordes’s first novel, published by Grasset in 1931. It tells the story of a son’s love for his mother until the painful separation. This book, which has never been republished since, is read and performed by Olivier Charneux—a writer, playwright, and director—during special evening readings.

For the occasion, Toan Vu-Huu uses BVH Anto Rounded Italic in a colorful poster.

The poster was exhibited at the 31st International Poster Competition at Le Signe, the National Graphic Design Center in Chaumont (France).