The portfolio showcase of creative agency Dosdecadatres from Madrid is an excellent example for an eccentric typeface used well.

The font in use is Soda Jerk by Nick Curtis. If you look at Soda Jerk in a straight line of text or, even worse, in a full paragraph setting, you might think it was a failed attempt at an Art Déco typeface, and that the formally related Mostra Nuova was more versatile and did a much better job. Indeed Soda Jerk is lacking qualities that one would usually expect from a typeface, like harmonized proportions and an evenly balanced distribution of black and white. It is rather a conglomeration of letterforms than a coordinated system.

No wonder: It was inspired by lettering found on a French travel poster from 1929, where the letterforms had to work in this one specific instance only. The trick is to use the font as lettering again — non-typographic, in different sizes, without a common baseline — because that’s what it is, after all: digitized lettering. Then it’s possible to create something striking and unique, and then Soda Jerk’s extreme and almost pictorial letterforms are actually superior to something more regularized.

Graphic design and art direction by Luis B Hernandez. See the full booklet including the work samples — and the text typography in Soho — on Issuu.