Birra Bruin is the typeface chosen for the identity of Ausome Hoops, a basketball program specifically designed for young people with autism.

​In 2022, Ausome Hoops revamped its visual identity. The star of the game is Birra Bruin. Bruin takes to the court with its semi-slab uppercase, while its blackletter-inspired lowercase is mostly kept on the sidelines. It can be seen scoring in social media posts and the website (assist: Montserrat). For the logo, the letterforms were drawn bolder, with rounded terminals, set on an arch and spruced up with outline and shadow effects. On the jerseys, the oblique glyphs were slanted back to make them stand upright. Purists may cry fould play, but we give three points – go Hoops!

Founded in 2019, Ausome Hoops organizes school holiday camps and weekly programs for kids on the autism spectrum in the area of Melbourne, Australia, “providing a safe, inclusive space where they can learn how to play basketball free from the judgement from others”.

Birra Bruin was designed by Elena Schneider and released as the Medium Italic in Darden Studio’s Birra Flight of fonts, a diverse family with styles created separately by various guest designers. Like all Birra fonts – five at the time of writing – it’s available free of charge.

The website pairs headings in all-caps Birra Bruin, with text rendered in Montserrat.

Eventually, Birra Bruin’s lowercase get some time on the court, too: it’s used for the titles in the merch shop.

Birra Bruin is the typeface chosen to promote this year’s Kærleikskúlan. The Christmas bauble for 2020 was created by Finnbogi Pétursson and is titled ÞÖGN (“Silence”).

The blackletter-inspired shapes of Birra Bruin add a festive, slightly arcane tone to the web posters. Designer Erla Anna says she chose the typeface because it reminded her “of old Icelandic calligraphy pages and has a great personality and warmth”. The single-weight italic was designed by Elena Schneider and released as the second installment in the Birra Flight of fonts. Like all Birra fonts, it’s available free of charge from Darden Studio.

Kærleikskúlan (“Ball of Love”) is an initiative by the Icelandic Association of the Paralyzed and Disabled. Each year, the non-profit organization invites an artist to design a special jólakúlur, or Christmas bauble. Many people love to collect the Kærleikskúlurnar. They come in a limited edition which is sold during the Advent season, with all proceeds going to the benefit of disabled children and young people.

Artist Finnbogi Pétursson explains the idea behind his glass bauble:

The love ball contains one meter of audio tape, which is the equivalent of one second of silence. The recording was made at Arnarstapi in the summer of 1986 between three and four o’clock at night. There I met the moment when everything was silent; the birds, the sea, the wind, the rolls – the flies. The moment when nature resets itself, there will be sound and a new day will dawn.

Birra Bruin not only supports Extended Latin including the characters needed for typesetting Icelandic, it also “speaks” Vietnamese.