Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“the Charter”) is a bill of rights that was entrenched in the Constitution of Canada in 1982. The text on the original poster is set in Carl Dair’s Cartier, which was commissioned for the Centennial in 1967. Issued by Mono Lino in Toronto, its use was an expression of Canadian nationalism for many years afterwards.

The poster version that’s available from the Government of Canada’s website at the time of writing is a later emulation and uses Raleigh, a similar design made by David Anderson and Robert Norton for Typsettra around 1977. Since Raleigh is roman only, the italic parts were set in ITC Garamond.

Charte canadienne des droits et libertés, 1982

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, later edition

Charte canadienne des droits et libertés, later edition

Brands&People developed the complete identity system for Mutt, a modern pet wellness brand that produces high-quality food for life companions. The logotype is set in Taxi (by Typeverything), whose distinctive personality gave the brand its confident and friendly tone. It is paired with ITC Garamond, Fragment Mono and Libre Caslon Text.

Citizen X is an investment firm focused exclusively on ventures, token projects, and protocols built for Web3 services, DeFi, and NFTs. The core idea behind the brand identity is rooted in the symbolic framework of blockchain. The design elements such as typography and brand shapes draw inspiration from blockchains, which consist of interconnected blocks forming an expanding list of records.

The wordmark is custom drawn to establish a distinctive presence. It is paired with two typefaces that create a deliberate tension between tradition and innovation:

ITC Garamond is used for headings, evoking heritage, credibility, and the world of finance. Px Grotesk is used for body text, referencing digital culture and the forward-looking ethos of Web3.

Together, they express Citizen X’s role at the intersection of established financial principles and emerging decentralized technologies.

See also the 2022 version of this identity.

The Centre for Preventive Care is a speculative design project exploring the future of healthcare. In November 2022, the Centre for Preventive Care, set in the year 2052, opened its doors for a week inside the main entrance of Stockholm’s Södersjukhuset hospital.

During this event, visitors were invited to experience a healthcare visit in the future and to contemplate the pros and cons of prediction and prevention.

The project was then turned into a website (in (Swedish and English), serving as an archive of the event as well as a plateform to continue the conversation online. This project was commissioned and financed by Vinova, the Swedish agency for innovation.

More info on vinnova.se (in Swedish).

The artist's name, in modified, partially-interlocking Montblanc (ParaType, 1990), sits atop the album title, Глубина Резкости (English: “Depth of Field”), set in a variation of Helvetica Ultra Compressed with Russian character support. The Dolphin logo seen here debuted with his first album in 1997, though its designer was uncredited.

From Wikipedia:

Andrey Vyacheslavovich Lysikov (born 29 September 1971 in Moscow) is a Russian musical artist, singer, songwriter, poet and rapper, known by his stage name Dolphin (or Дельфин). He joined Russian boy band/rap group Malchyshnik in 1992 and went solo in 1997. He won the award of best artist at the 2004 MTV Russian Music Awards.

[More info on Discogs]

Fonts from the Flea Market #1385

The cover of this Swiss release of “Mozart’s most beautiful melodies in the sound of the time” combines three typefaces whose names are all prefixed by three letters.

In G.K.W. Computer, they refer to Gustav Kuhle Werbung, a German advertising agency with branches in Berlin and Munich. Their close follower of Moore Computer was distributed by Berthold Fototypes and Zipatone.

The initials in MGB Patrician stand for Don Munson, Lynda Graham, and Ray Barber. Lynda is the widow of Barber who co-designed the typeface together with Munson, then Art Director at Ballantine Books.

Last but not least, the prefix in ITC Garamond denotes the International Typeface Corporation. Founded in New York in 1970, it pioneered the licensing of typeface designs for phototypesetting and dry transfer lettering. ITC originated a number of highly successful releases, including reinterpretations of classic designs, typically with a raised x-height and expanded to a range of weights.

[More info on Discogs]

Paralaxe Editions presents Naemi and Dania, September 9, 2024

Located in Berlin-Wedding, silent green Kulturquartier is an event venue and independent project housed in the historic premises of a former crematorium. Form und Konzept is a direct neighbor and responsible for much of their visual communication. For the posters advertising concerts in September 2024, the design studio of Beata Niedhart and Oliver Spieker worked with PicNic.

The inclined serif with its characteristic wobbly contours was designed by Mariel Nils and jointly released by NoFoundry and Velvetyne in 2022 under the CUTE license. PicNic comes with a built-in bouncing baseline which can be intensified by activating the ligatures. In some of the posters, Form und Konzept further cranked up the bounciness by manually shifting the baseline for selected glyphs.

The organic letterforms are interlaced with such from the more conventional Myriad and Pragmatica. The latter – a variant of Helvetica with shorter descenders – is part of silent green’s house style.

Salenta De Badisdenne, Topu Lyo, and Andrew Pekler, September 11, 2024

Bex Burch & Laurel Pardue, Teresa Allgaier, September 13, 2024

Brìghde Chaimbeul, Dylan Kerr, September 24, 2024

de Young onsite signage

Irving Penn is widely recognized as one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Vogue’s longest-standing contributor, Penn revolutionized fashion photography in the postwar era. The retrospective at the de Young Museum San Francisco traces his 70-year spanning career in 175 photographs—from early documentary scenes chronicling the Summer of Love to celebrity portraits, abstract nudes, and fashion studies.

The graphic identity and typographic concept were developed by Lizzie Baur and uses a custom unreleased variable version of Charlottenburg, which was created for the exhibition. A major through-line centers on theatricality and artifice. For the existential portrait series, Penn made a banal, temporary set in which he stuffed his subjects into a corner crevice, challenging them to grapple with physically occupying such an unusual space. Their bodies became almost sculptural as his sitters contort and utilize the space in radically different ways. To rearticulate the gesture typographically, Lizzie Baur imagined their bodies as letterforms. The width of the characters can be manually scaled, just like the portrayed adapt to their unfamiliar surroundings.

The variable font is also employed in motion graphics, which nicely contrasts with the all-analog title wall leading to the exhibition. The wall was painted by hand by the San Francisco-based sign painting studio New Bohemia Signs and took over three days to complete.

ITC Garamond supports the expressive typography and large-scale display arrangements in the more toned-down, classical communication elements.

More images and additional information can be found on Lizzie Baur’s website.

Inspiration for exhibition titling

Wheat paste posters

Billboard

Charlottenburg variable font animations

Exhibition signage

Exhibition signage

Title wall

New Bohemia’s sign painters at work on the title wall

Time lapse

Exhibition leaflets

This pack of baking soda as sold in Russia and previously in the USSR has a recognizable design and is considered just as iconic as the packaging designs for salt, sugar and Indian tea. The manufacturer is the Bashkir Soda Company, located in the city of Sterlitamak in the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russian Federation. Today T-shirts and various other items not related to the food industry are being produced with a similar design. The product is still being sold with minor changes to the packaging design.

There are three main types of design: the one used during Soviet times, a Russian one, and a more recent redesign. In the USSR design, the product name “СОДА” is in a Cyrillic version of a French Clarendon. Italiennes Étroites comes close in terms of proportions and the low bar in A. It’s unclear if this is lettering or a typeface. The text “натрий двууглекислый” (“sodium bicarbonate”) is written in the typeface Zhurnalnaya Roublennaya, which is a Cyrillic extension of Erbar-Grotesk.

Already in the 1990s – after the collapse of the USSR – the package was redesigned. The product name “Сода Пищевая” (“baking soda”) now is shown in Erika, a Cyrillic version of Eras. Secondary text is in Arial and sometimes in Akzidenz-Grotesk Condensed Bold [edit: or rather Hermes (PT), see comments].

The USSR package from 1980 (left) compared to the redesigned one from 2018 (right)

Aún te Quiero (“I Still Love You”) is a fanzine that explores the destruction of objects and the disassembly of memories with objects in maximalist contexts. The magazine reflects on and accompanies four people on their way to destroy special objects for them.

From Wikipedia:

They Might Be Giants, sometimes called The Pink Album, is the debut studio album from Brooklyn-based band They Might Be Giants. It was released by Bar/None in 1986. The album generated two singles, “Don't Let's Start” and “(She Was A) Hotel Detective”. […]

The album’s cover art was illustrated by Rodney Alan Greenblat, who had no prior association with the band. It extends to the back cover of the album, and shows John Linnell and John Flansburgh riding a large blue dog. John Linnell commented that the illustration caused the record to be mistaken for a children's album. The art was pasted up by John Flansburgh.

The title on the front cover uses caps from Filmotype Metro. The text on the back cover is set in roman and italic styles from ITC Garamond.

[More info on Discogs]

Estudio Paloma created a new packaging for Tarta de Queso using Bourbon St from Typeverything for the main identity. Additional typefaces used across the packaging are ITC Garamond, Fabio XM and Nautica.

A very throwback late 70s/early 80s promo campaign for John Mayer’s 2021 ode to yacht rock with his full length album Sob Rock. Album titles are facilitated by Akzidenz-Grotesk Condensed. Secondary type for the ad campaign was mostly Kabel Black for copy. Dry transfer favorites like Frankfurter Highlight, Yearbook, Microgramma, and ITC Garamond make occasional appearances. postly Design by Jeremy Dean. Photography by Carlos Serrao.

[More info on Discogs]

Variation of an existing merch tagline by Online Ceramics

Wright’s Ferry Mansion is a historic house museum in Pennsylvania. Their website features Romie by Margot Lévêque as the typographic star of the show, making use of its gorgeous ligature and expanded character set. This ornate text is balanced by a classic and a workhorse: Tony Stan’s ITC Garamond and Inter by Rasmus Andersson.

The situation for independent, investigative journalism is more than difficult throughout Central America. This is also true for Guatemala which, in 2023, ranks 127th out of 180 countries listed in the World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters without Borders. Journalists investigating in illegal business and corruption suffer from defamation, physical attacks and also from persecution by state authorities. A most recent case that made it into international headlines is that of José Rubén Zamora who found himself accused of money laundering and remains arrested since June 2022. His incarceration plunged his newspaper, El Periódico, in substantial turbulences. After almost thirty years the Guatemalan flagship newspaper ceased to exist in May 2023.

But there is hope. On one hand, there is a new government after the 2023 elections, on the other hand, there is a handful of younger media outlets, mostly founded in the digital sphere, that carry on the torch. Among them is the website featured in this post, No-Ficción. It was brought to life in 2017 and quickly managed to achieve excellent reputation. No-Ficción’s pillars are faithful and profound real-life narratives, investigation and data journalism, in order to join the dots behind the news. On a structural level, they pursue a collective strategy inside that makes it harder to silence the enterprise by targeting the figurehead; and a networking strategy outside, forming an alliance with other media outlets in the larger Mesoamerican region.

The design of the website of No-Ficción follows a simple yet efficient pattern. In the single post entry, a large photograph is followed by single-column left-aligned typesetting, further (smaller) pictures and other media such as audio players might be embedded in that column. Clearly different are the designs for special topics, mostly series, and the “About us” pages that display larger type on a black background.

The site uses three typefaces, with Cardinal Fruit being the most defining one for its look. Fruit the condensed branch of Production Type’s larger Cardinal Collection, and as such especially useful for headlines and typesetting in tight columns. Cardinal Fruit references 1980s typography in general and early computer advertisements in particular. On no-ficcion.com, we can see it used in its Medium weight for heading and lead-ins. For the reading texts in the articles, No-Ficción uses the Light Narrow style of ITC Garamond, which was a reference point in the design of Cardinal Fruit, and as such is a natural fit. The type palette is perfected by Maax Mono for the secondary information, the navigation and the reading text in the “About us” pages.

Detail from the About page

Detail from the Investigación archives

Article banner

Detail from the Código Ético page

Detail from the Podcast archives

Head of an article page

Cardinal Fruit for headline and lede, with ITC Garamond Narrow for text, and Maax Mono for the marginalia.

Hardcover edition, Chatto & Windus, April 2022

NoViolet Bulawayo is the pen name of Elizabeth Zandile Tshele, a Zimbabwean author. This novel, her second, was moved up to the shortlist for the 2022 Booker Prize. Her first novel had been on the shortlist for the same literary prize in 2013.

The title type is printed with a matte varnish, as is the black ink on the illustration. The cover illustration is credited to “The Ninevites in collaboration with Thapelo Keetile.”

Back cover

Paperback edition, Vintage, March 2023

Волхонка. Неторопливая прогулка (English: Volkhonka. The Unhurried Walk) is a book about the history and architecture of Volkhonka, one of the oldest streets in Moscow situated near the Kremlin. Written by architectural historian Federica Rossi, the book is something more than an ordinary guidebook. A big historical and archival research preceded the writing of the book. Written in an easy manner the book opens new pages of thrilling history of the district. It is richly illustrated with both modern and historical materials, many of which are published for the first time.

The book was designed by and for White City Project Foundation, with art direction by Ivan Aleksandrov and graphic design by Ekaterina Yumasheva and Elena Byalaya. The typography uses Geometria (Brownfox) and Gauge (Alexander Tarbeev). It won several awards, including Red Dot (“Best of the best” nomination, Winner 2020), European Design Awards (Silver, 2020), and Zharkniga (Grand prix, 2020).

For more info and images, see Behance.

Visual identity and editorial design for the catalog of the exhibition Buone Nuove. Donne in architettura (“Good News. Women in architecture”), MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome. Curated by Pippo Ciorra, Elena Motisi, and Elena Tinacci. In collaboration with Marsilio Editore.

Hardcover, 17 × 24 cm, 264 pages, English and Italian.

From ECAL:

During the summer of 2019, thirteen students from the Master's in Photography program at ECAL, under the guidance of Milo Keller, traveled to Japan to develop thirteen individual projects in collaboration with Japanese photographer Taisuke Koyama as part of the Tokyo Photographic Research project. Whether through still or moving images, or computer-generated photographic visuals, the students' works explore a wide variety of aspects of the Japanese metropolis, which, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, was undergoing significant transformations in preparation for the 2020 Summer Olympics. Some projects focus on concrete aspects of the city, from the demolition of small residential houses to the construction of the massive Olympic Village, and even the expansion of new territories into the sea. Other works delve into peculiarities of Japanese culture, such as family-oriented food, the desire to create humanoid robots, the blending of child and adult worlds in manga, the Pachinko game, the reinvention of Ikebana, and emerging young female talents. Lastly, the artworks aim to visualize more abstract concepts like solitude, emptiness, and intimacy in a city that, due to its density, size, and power, embraces a stimulating, captivating, and extremely thought-provoking complexity for the eyes of the thirteen photographers.

The bilingual publication (English and Japanese) was edited by Milo Keller and published by ECAL. Thomas Le Provost provided the book design, using WrittenShape’s Craft and ITC Garamond. The Japanese typeface is yet unidentified [It’s DNP Shuei Mincho, see comments].

The book was accompanied by a temporary website with videos and credits at higurashi.zone.

When Željko Knežević and Matko Barun of fledgling distillery High Spirits planned to launch their premium gin, they realized that a superb packaging was needed to make some waves. Luckily they knew whom to turn to: Izvorka Jurić and her studio in Zagreb have repeatedly proven that they are a first class address for design that can make a difference.

Sampé gin is a strong alcoholic drink distilled domestically from the finest Croatian grapes. With its refined combination of herbal aromas that include pine, lemon, and Adriatic salt, it has a strong connection to the sea. Izvorka Jurić (Creative and Art Director) and Jurica Kos (Senior Designer) explored this link for their approach. They comment on the background of the name:

Many countries on the shores of the great sea know the legend of how St. Peter once caught the John Dory fish and left fingerprints on its body; that’s why this sea delicacy is still called by his name: Šanpjer, Sant-Pierre, Sampé. Inspired by an ancient tale, we gave the name Sampé to a premium gin that pays tribute to the Mediterranean – a mythical place where the divine touch permeates nature and its precious gifts.

This theme was then translated to a unique bottle and label design:

The originally designed bottle has the shape of the sea surface on the front. The brand name is mirror printed on the back of the bottle, so on the front, it is visible through sea waves and the gin liquid which gives the impression that the brand name Sampé is in the water. This position deforms the typography and creates exciting shapes and structures that change by turning the bottle in hand or changing the viewing angle. […] The light blue-colored glass and wooden stopper in the conical shape of a sailor’s cap contribute to the overall Mediterranean feel.

For the typography, Jurić and Kos selected Rector “for the ideal combination of monumental and graceful”. The lapidary serif with sharply cut shapes and majestic capitals was designed by Hrvoje Živčić and published by Production Type. On the labels, Rector is contrasted with a sans serif by another Croatian type designer: Nikola Djurek’s Brioni Sans, available from Typotheque.

The hopes of the distillery were fulfilled: Sampé won Gold in the IdejaX Best of Ad-Making Awards and Silver in the Dieline Awards, one of the world’s most prestigious packaging design awards.

Website detail with the origin story of the name

The distorted letterforms of the brand name as seen from the front of the bottle

Bottle neck with the brand name in raised ink

The slogan in caps from Rector Bold …

… and how this setting translates to the raised glass lettering on the bottle

The brand story as shown on the side of the bottle, in English and Croatian, and set in Rector combined with Brioni Sans

The highlighted words in Brioni Sans caps are scaled to match the x-height of Rector.

The wooden stopper features a single S from Rector.

Website detail

The mirrored type on the back of the bottle