Genius of The Fern Loved Gulley is Amy Hale’s biography of Ithell Colquhoun (1906–1988). It was published by Strange Attractor Press in August 2020:

After decades of neglect, the British Surrealist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun’s unique vision and hermetic life have generated enormous interest amongst historians and practitioners of art and magic. In this, the first in-depth biographical study of Colquhoun and her work, Amy Hale examines the magical and cultural confluences that shaped her imaginative life and artistic vision.

The typeface family used for the book’s typography is Gerard Unger’s Alverata (TypeTogether, 2014). Alverata comprises three subfamilies; Regular, Informal, and Irregular, each of which comes in six weights. The latter is inspired by Romanesque inscriptions from around the 12th century – a topic that Unger explored in his doctoral thesis at the Leiden University. It is this variety that was chosen for the cover. Alverata Irregular is distinguished by curved capitals including unfamiliar forms like an asymmetrical T, a symmetrical Q, or a round uncial E. Designer Tihana Šare utilized some of the alternate glyphs to reinforce the arcane qualities of the typeface. Alverata Irregular is a great fit for Colquhoun and her work.

The body copy is set in plain Alverata. It’s less attention-grabbing, yet perfectly harmonizes with the titling face.

While the difference between Alverata (line 1) and Alverata Informal (2) is largely limited to the forms for a e g, Alverata Irregular (3) is a very different beast. Line 4 shows Alverata Irregular with some of its alternate forms.

Writer and book designer Joseph Ucello designed the cover of this book by Radomir Ristic about witchcraft by mixing Garda Nova 2 by Mário Feliciano (using ligatures and alternates) and Alverata by Gerard Unger. The combination of both typefaces in red on top of a photo composition gives a mystic look to the two editions of the book.

Douwe Egberts – selling coffee since 1753 – is the leading coffee brand in the Netherlands. In 2014, Design Bridge were tasked with bringing back lost brand equity. The challenge of the brief was to be authentic, yet not become a “nostalgic window into the past”.

The redesign came with a new wordmark, based on Gerard Unger's recently released Alverata. This mark combines some unusual choices for a mainstream brand: an early use of a retail typeface used as the brand's staple, and combining capitals, small caps and unicase letter shapes within a logo that should evoke nothing but tradition and familiarity.

Before and after.

Einstein & Friends is the title of an exhibition at Museum Boerhaave (since 2017 Rijksmuseum Boerhaave), celebrating the 100th birthday of Albert Einstein's relativity theory. The exhibition focuses on Einstein's relations with his Dutch colleagues and contemporaries through photographs, letters and other ephemera.

The poster shows a picture of Einstein and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, taken in 1920 by Paul Ehrenfest, in front of his house in Leiden.

Cinéma l’Amour is a unusual place where all types of love can meet, without fear of falling into the disillusionment which we are constantly confronted. A real place in the heart of Montreal that presents pornographic movies on big screen, every day of the week, open to all. A book that traces and demystifies this unique place from all angles.

A student project made together with Virginie Jamieson as part of the course Typographisme: Illustration held by Judith Poirier at the School of Design, UQAM.

In À L’Antique (French for “in the antique manner”) Frac Normandie Rouen and Musée des Antiquités Rouen bring together contemporary art and masterpieces from the antiquity. The exhibition is structured in fifteen chapters, going from ancient funeral rituals to archeology as a practice for contemporay artists. The texts are are composed in Gerard Unger’s Alverata, an interpretation of romanesque letterforms. Designed by Jérôme Knebusch. The full booklet can be read here (texts in French).

Booklet front page

In the early nineties, Matthias Marx and Paul Ludwig — two pastors from Eppelborn, Saarland — were travelling through France. Accidentaly, in the small town of Angers in the Pays de la Loire, they stumbled upon an exhibition of tapestry master Jean Lurçat. To say they were hooked would be a huge understatement:
Today, twenty-five years later, their hometown hosts a museum dedicated solely to the work of Jean Lurçat. In August 2017, the museum — headed by Matthias Marx — celebrated its silver jubilee.

The bilingual (German/French) publications, designed by Patrick Bittner and Manuel Wesely, use Alverata Irregular by Gerard Unger and then yet unreleased Clip by Bold-Decisions.

Bilingual museum biography, portrait of Jean Lurçat by André Kertesz

Booklet folded out

The backside of the booklet printing sheet — a poster with closeups of Lurçat’s tapestries, all to be seen live in the Museum Jean Lurçat

Closeup of my two favourite tapestries — left Die vier Elemente (1961) and right Schwarze Wunder (1957)

The A1 celebration poster, with two A3 designs on the bottom and one A2 design on the top

Spanish type and graphic designer Octavio Pardo has created the branding for the high quality bakery L’Atelier. The signage at the bakery and the business cards use Alverata, a typeface designed by Dr Gerard Unger.

The Ibsen Festival is a celebration of Norway’s famous playwright, theatre director and poet, Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906). Now in its fifteen edition, the festival includes new productions of Ibsen’s work, performed in a variety of languages. A good example is Monsters of Reality – The Mimesis Machine, presented in Norwegian and Greek.

Argentinian studio Design Sessions, led by renowned designer César Sesio, has been in charge of designing the booklet for the play, using Dr Gerard Unger’s Alverata. The booklet presents a combination of Alverata and Alverata Irregular, in titles and texts.

To celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the University Library of Groningen in 2015, designer Nynke Tiekstra (ColtsfootMedia, Rotterdam) was commisioned to design the book The University Library of Groningen. Four hundred years of history in four buildings, forty collections and infinite pictures. The brief suggested that the book should reflect the evolution of the library “from a single room with chained books to a modern and busy centre which is an information hub and a social meeting place as well.”

For this project Tiekstra needed a typeface that “could link this 400 years in library history. Gerard Unger’s typeface Alverata did that job excellent”. Additionally, “the playfulness charmed the author of the book instantly, when she noticed the irregularities of the type in the first proof-design”. The result is that “Alverata genuinely supports the book’s presentation of the many delightful, fascinating and rare items in the library’s care. And thanks to the typeface, the book has become a balanced and contemporary impression of the treasures preserved by the library”

Alverata Irregular is shown here in use at Clay! A century of ceramics at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. The exhibition at Gemeentemuseum focuses on the history of the ceramics department at this prestigious Amsterdam art school. Alverata Irregular, designed by Gerard Unger, can be seen on the exhibition’s display walls as well as in the bilingual catalogue (Dutch and English), published by Impact Vastgoed BV and Waanders.

Alverata, designed by Gerard Unger, has been exclusively used on the website of the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede, Netherlands. The museum has already been using Alverata for its identity and applications.

The responsive website has a neat and clean design which matches the museum's overall branding.

The Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede, Netherlands, focuses on 18th century art as well as contemporary works, and is currently undergoing a redesign.

Type and graphic designer Gerard Unger has been commissioned to design the logo based on his latest typeface, Alverata: “It was a challenge to design their logo, to make it look like no other museum logo”, and yet still make it stand out from those of other Dutch museums in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam. The new design has been developed and applied by in-house designer Karin Bakker.