What if the real change lies not in our model but in the way we look at it?

This poster series, designed by Juliette Ran for the fifteenth edition of Printemps de la typographie, using VZWO’s Varianz Sans Low Sans, celebrates the diversity of ways in which we can look at a model. Each line illustrates a different reading, a different vision, a different approach to the model. As a tribute to the wealth of interpretations, the poster embodies the variety of paths and insights we can use to understand it.

Tobias Moser harnessed the bold, dynamic flair of VZWO Choreo Display, blending its massive black style with its sleek, swinging thin style to craft captivating posters and animations for the electrifying “UMTRUNK” event by Hochschule München’s Faculty of Design.

The night kicked off with a public screening, building anticipation for an unforgettable DJ set by the one and only DJ Alberto Amore.

The man in the moon is a space-style clothing brand conceived by Helen Brose as a student project at Münster School of Design, FH Münster.

The brand uses the display typeface VZWO Elephant in their logo as well as in the graphics on their clothes. The lines of the illustrations on the shirts and tote bags pick up on the soft yet powerful style of the typeface. This creates a particularly good font–image combination.

Helen Brose defines the brand as follows:

“The man in the moon” offers an alternative to basic shirts and mainstream fashion. “The man in the moon” combines bizarre motives on shirts and bags with an urban style. The illustrations are printed on shirts and bags. Every buyer receives a unique piece of clothing, as each item is silk-screen-printed for them only after purchasing. Einstein once said: “Life is nothing without a dash of madness”. Simultaneously, he was questioning and analyzing the universe. I think that at some point we all have to ask ourselves about our existence. To sum it up, this is the question upon which “The man in the moon” is based.

Community Views displays VARIANZ Low Sans and Mid Sans in combination with Archivo for the use in a booklet and an exhibition stand at the Dutch Design Week 2023.

VARIANZ Low Sans serves as the workhorse sans, used for long-reading texts and captions in the magazine, as well as for the texts on the exhibition posters. Fine details in the layout are standing out, where the VARIANZ Mid Sans comes into play for subheadings and the column title – emphasized through a colourful gradient filling. The Archivo font is used for short headlines.

The Community Views project aimed to explore the impact of public social installations in urban spaces on community and interpersonal relationships. Started as Miriam Neukam’s Master thesis in the Design & Future Making department at HS Pforzheim, the project was presented at the Dutch Design Week 2023.

The project took place at the centrally located Waisenhausplatz in Pforzheim, Germany. Installations were set up there, focusing on the themes of urban design, interpersonal relationships, and ethical values. These installations were equipped with a variety of materials which were accessible to everyone. This created a space for encounters and exchanges. Through collaborative creative work, wishes and statements were collected and reflected upon. This, in turn, led to a broader discussion of topics that enriched the exchange.

Varianz High Serif and what looks like slightly stretched caps from Fraktion Mono being used for the exhibition and award ceremony of the Arthur-Petersen-Preis 2023.

The Muthesius Kunsthochschule writes:

The Arthur Petersen Prize for Master’s graduates of the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design will be awarded for the first time at the end of November. The Arthur Petersen Foundation is providing the university with a total of 10,000 euros to honour Master's graduates. The scholarship jury will award four prizes of 2,500 euros each for final theses and projects in the Fine Arts, Spatial Strategies, Industrial Design and Communication Design degree programmes. The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, 30 November, at 6 pm at sp ce | Muthesius. Afterwards, the four prize-winning works will be on display in the exhibition space of the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design at Andreas-Gayk-Straße 7-11, Kiel.

Location: sp ce | Muthesius; Andreas-Gayk-Straße 7-11, 24103 Kiel
Date: Friday, 01.12.2023 - Saturday, 13.01.2024
Time: All day

Symposion – Ein Tischgespräch über die Kulturarbeit (“A round table about cultural work”) is the title of Jana Vogt’s thesis in Communication Design made at MSD – Münster School of Design in 2023.

The five people who speak in this symposium are mosaic-like assemblages. They are perspective rather than person. Catalysts who were allowed to “feed” on ten personally conducted interviews and ten literary and academic discussions from the field of cultural work.

Jana Vogt gave each of the different perspectives their own voice by using one of the nine styles of VARIANZ. Thus, the tone of the conversation varies and corresponds to the spoken word without creating disharmony or visual clutter.

The Aureum font by Anna Sing is used in initials, interjections and headlines. VARIANZ by Viktor Zumegen is used for subtitles, body text and footnotes.

Jana Vogt writes:

The symposium is a table talk, a playful exchange about the value of cultural work. It is a literary buffet of facts, personal hopes, and concerns of cultural workers. Coming from different places, yet sitting at the same table, those working in culture negotiate realities, share and listen, and feel a sense of belonging. Can this practice, and the feeling it creates for the fictional guests and readers, give rise to a better understanding and appreciation of the process behind cultural production? In my creative process, I combine ethnographic and creative methods. I have organised real voices from the cultural sector in a fictional way on paper and formulated prominent common demands and messages. The table setting is both an invitation and a call: to enter into conversation about what culture creates and what we could create together; to value the efforts it takes to cultivate occasions for encounter, for collective and sensual consumption.

Construction is a magazine conceived and designed by Juliette Ran as a student project in the DNMADE Graphisme édition & typographie program at ENSAAMA. It questions the notion of construction through artistic, sociological and philosophical essays, freeing itself from its materialist conception.

Inspired by La Maison démontable (English: One Week), a silent comedy directed by Buster Keaton, Ran reflected on the edition by progressively reworking its construction principles.

Thus, it plays with the rules of the page layout in a terrain defined by columns and indents. The main thread is the variable font Varianz created by Viktor Zumegen which has two axes: expression and serifs.

Die Zeiten gendern sich is the title of Philipp Ruschke’s thesis in Communication Design made at HAW Hamburg in 2021. It includes a theoretical essay about gender-neutral and gender-inclusive language in German (booklet) and a complete “translation” of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, from the original German translation into a new gender-neutral version (book).

The design features the color scheme of the transgender pride flag as well as the variable superfamily VARIANZ by Viktor Zumegen which slowly shifts its appearance throughout the chapters by using the two axis “Expression” and “Serifs” of the variable font. The change in the typeface isn’t recognisable until you compare the first with the last chapter – in reminiscence of the gender spectrum.

The book has 288 pages (140×215 mm), the booklet 92 pages (206×286 mm).

Lettering, poster series and shop window by Hannes Brischke for Mannequin, an exhibition by Jonathan Maus at Casino Display in Luxembourg.

Photos on the poster by Jonathan Maus and Mirco Kanthak
Subtitle typeface: Varianz Mid Serif by Viktor Zumegen
Photographs by Samantha Wilvert

Bella triste is a journal for contemporary German-language literature.

In issue 63 of the magazine, Vivien Sorrentino and Elfi Handina Murandu used the VARIANZ variable superfamily and ABC Monument Grotesk to the fullest. From headlines to long texts, the variable fonts of VARIANZ are used extensively. They are combined with Monument Grotesk for subtitles, text and information.

Texts in the magazine are written by Olufemi Atibioke, Clara Sondermann, Nora Haddada, Son Lewandowski, Jona Stoll, Paula Kläy, Ta-Som Yun and Leonie Hoh.