“On the Uses of Absence” is the title of Soapbox, issue 6.0:

Can we speak of a turn to absence? Across the contemporary academic conjuncture, theory is reapproaching the absent in its varying figurative and fleshly forms – revalorising the presence of absence as a critical matter. Whether in queer theory, trans studies, Black studies, Eastern European studies, or literary studies, enduring scholarly investments in re-presenting and re-presencing the absented body have become supplemented by an affirmative interest in staying with absence as such. This scholarship locates absence at the heart of myriad resistances against exploitation, appropriation, undoing, and normativity. For its seventh issue, Soapbox: Journal for Cultural Analysis has invited scholars and artists alike to submit work on the uses of absence in and outside of theory today. As an object of study, a critical figure, and rhetorical tool, absence is given a shape, meaning, form; it is put in writing, where it has a function, a flavour, and a politics. Absence, in other words, fails every time to be purely nothing. How, then, to think the contradiction and the provocation of a contemporary aesthetics of absence?

The graphic design was made by Alice Machado and Paolo Barbieri. They used Adriane Text by Marconi Lima, Harber by Benoît Bodhuin and Superness Modulo – a digitization by Alessio D’Ellena and Alberto Malossi of Nebiolo’s Modulo.

EP cover [More info on Discogs]

NewJeans is a five-member South Korean girl group, releasing music under the native ADOR record label. Promotions for the group first started on 22 July 2022, with their first music video “Attention” being released on streaming service YouTube. Their eponymous debut EP was released on August 1, 2022.

Under the management of South Korean art director and graphic designer Min Hee-Jin, NewJeans donned on a Y2K-inspired image. It trickles down from fashion to the typography used in their promotional artworks, favouring flourishes and display types prominently used in the late ’90s and early ’00s.

Unlike typical brands, many people were commissioned to create several logos for NewJeans, giving their identity more fluidity within its early millennium look. The wordmarks encompass styles found in the era, from the likes of brands like Bratz, Heelys and The Powerpuff Girls, to name a few.

While custom lettering was used, there are still many fonts being applied on the logos. An anonymous Twitter user named @newjeansfonts has taken the liberty to search and curate all the utilised typefaces on a dedicated website. A Reddit user has also compiled the various logos in its animated form, likely extracted from the artists’ Instagram pages. Their official logo consists of a hybrid of various fonts being used in different glyphs, altogether being faux-condensed.

Top row: Village / Amador / not a font / newjeansfonts suggests Dollie Script with modifications, but that’s unlikely

Middle row: not a font / not a font / possibly a mix of Honey Pocaline and Times New Roman / not a font

Bottom row: Conthrax / not a font / newjeansfonts suggests Sloop Script and Elevon with modifications, but at least Sloop seems unlikely / Sharp Grotesk Book 25 and Medium 20, plus the alternate w from ITC Avant Garde Gothic

Additional logo designs shown in their interactive website, newjeans.kr. It is included in its website feature, “My Album,” an online NewJeans album cover maker.

Screenshot of NewJeans’ intro card (with their official logo) for their performance of “Attention” in Music Bank (KBS World). The fonts in use appear to be Genty, Helvetica, Alagard, Brush Script, and Fairfax.

Screenshot of NewJeans’ stage design for their performance of “Cookie” in Inkigayo (SBS). It features one of their logos affixed with neon lights.

São Paulo based alles blau studio designed all three of the Brazilian editions of Jacobin magazine, a left-wing periodical offering a socialist perspective on a variety of themes. Jacobin was started in the U.S. in 2010, and the Brazilian version was founded in 2019 releasing once a year.

The whole publication is set exclusively in Brazilian typefaces: the titles are set in Fabiano Procópio's Durango Kid, body copy and headlines are set in Naipe Foundry’s Discórdia and additional text is set in Typefolio’s Stevie Sans. All the illustrations commisioned for the magazine are also by Brazilian artists. The nameplate, which could be either lettering or based on an existing typeface, was inherited from the magazine’s US version.

Among the magazine's readers is former Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva.

The talented Tokyo-based design studio Shiroi Rittai is responsible for the art direction of the Japanese long-running men’s fashion magazine Popeye. The “Summer Reading 2020” issue (No. 880) features Nina Stössinger’s Nordvest in capital letters, a setting for which Nina intentionally omitted the usual automatic tracking.

The Popeye masthead, named after the cartoon character, a refined take on the original logo from 1976, was designed by Seiichi Horiuchi. It has some similarities with Frankfurter Highlight, but with the highlights located north-east. The Japanese fonts as well as the geometric sans serif are yet unidentified [edit: see comments].

“Summer Reading Times” uses Adriane Swash.

Wieszczba wyroczni (“Oracle's oracle”) is an expression of people’s interest in divination and mystical beliefs in the 18th century. It was published in Warsaw in 1798. Thhe typography uses Adriane Swash, which offers a beautiful range of flourish letters with sets of alternate glyphs. Using swash fonts in modern designs is a very fine way to add historical and decorative character to any design. The body text uses Adriane Text.

Wieszczba wyroczni is part of the New Dimension of Old Typography series which consists of 10 redesigns of Polish books from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The designs were produced as a part of a doctoral dissertation at the Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Gdańsku (Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, Poland).

Read more about the project on Fonts In Use, or find out more about the project and the author on my portfolio website and Facebook.

Original edition of Wieszczba wyroczni czyli tablice kabalistyczne [...] from Ksawery Starzeński, printed by Michał Gröll in Warsaw in 1784.

Website for Antwerp-based design agency Talking Objects. A fairly minimal design that makes use of large images and generous whitespace.

The paired-back design is nicely matched by Typefolio's modern grotesque Stevie Sans. To add some surprise and prevent everything from becoming too bland, Stevie Sans is contrasted with Gerard Unger’s Capitolium News 2 in use for bodytext and some headlines.

Second Edition Project is an idea to redesign and republish selected books from the 16th to 19th century that have not been re-edited since their first edition. Read more about the project and its author.

The Medical Aspects of Death, and the Medical Aspects of the Human Mind by James Bower Harrison was first published by Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London in 1852.

“That's the spirit!” is a website with inspiring quotes for the creative soul.

In this project, I worked with animated gradient colours (via CSS3) to enhance the word’s meaning. I chose Adriane Lux because it is quite formal (stressing the “importance” of the quote) but also because of the transparent inline stroke that lets the colour shine through the typeface, aptly called “Lux”. The intended voice is further supported by Just Another Foundry's beautiful Bernino Sans.