CANALS is four part editorial journey, telling the story of the history, development and expansion of the iconic Amsterdam canals. It explores the early beginnings of the city, through the 17th-century until today.

The website, an initiative of designers Marcus Brown (Amsterdam) and Aristide Benoist (Malaga), uses the history of Amsterdam's channels for an exercise in web-based storytelling. All elements of magazine design come along: a storyline that is followed while browsing (like in a magazine, scrolling horizontally); punctuated with visually impressive section openings, drop caps text columns, an alternation and repetition of image, headings and text. The color palette follows the Amsterdam coat of arms (red, white and black), with additional color provided by archive images.

The star of the design is Kris Sowersby's Maelstrom Sans: a design with extreme contrast as its main ingredient, juxtaposing anything it is paired with, legible only in short words – and used just so, to great effect. To aid legibility, words set in Maelstrom are tracked. At the other end of the typographic spectrum is Commercial Type’s Graphik which, set in small size for columns of body text, ensures calmness and regularity.

In between these two, the designers use three condensed fonts for headlines, streamers, drop caps: Coign (Colophon) is a collection of condensed sans serifs. The website uses 37B (one of the less narrow styles), always in capitals. Grifinito, the compressed sibling to R-Typography’s Griffo and Griffito is used mainly for streamers. From chapter two, Caslon Graphique Compress D appears once per section. The Compress style is included with the URW version of Caslon Graphique (Red Rooster Collection has a similar but lighter style as Caslon Extra Condensed).

The Agave Plant for Product Design is a book that is a close documentary of Esther Toledano lamps work, a product designer who created a set of customisable lamps made with different agave plant-based recycled materials, and inspired by the ancient techniques used by the communities that have worked with the agave for centuries.

The research and development of that work is beautifully shown in this 200 page hand-bound book, by designer Cam(ila) Rivero-Lake. For the typography, Camila chose Grifinito for the headlines, Univers and Inconsolata for texts and captions.

M Le Magazine du Monde is the weekly magazine by Le Monde newspaper. On the eighth anniversary occasion, in 2019, the magazine got a new look with new typography and new sections. Some time after the first issue of the redesigned magazine, its masthead was extended with the spindly Marian Black (Commercial Type).

The texts are set in Grifo while headlines are set in Grifito and Grifinito from R-typography, paired with Berthold’s Akzidenz-Grotesk Wide (page numbers, some lead paragraphs) and Akzidenz-Grotesk Condensed (headlines).

M Le Magazine Du Monde International is an annual English-language publication for the non-French readers of M Le Mag, a weekly magazine by Le Monde. The annual presents a selection of portraits and stories previously published in the weekly magazine.

The release of this initial issue coincides with the eighth anniversary of M Le Mag, an occasion that led to a restyling of the weekly publication, with new typography and new sections. The International issue comes in a bigger format, a special paper stock and a strong emphasis on photography, making it a cherished collector’s item.

The texts are set in Grifo while headlines are set in Grifito and Grifinito from R-typography, paired with Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk Wide (page numbers, some lead paragraphs) and Akzidenz Grotesk Condensed (headlines).

Lisboa City Council released their newly remodelled magazine, designed by editorial designer Vasco Ferreira together with the City Council’s brand and communication department. The publication is the main means of communication between the city hall and the residents, and it uses exclusively typefaces by R-Typography: Grifo, Grifito, and Grifinito.

R-Typography also made a custom script typeface called Lisboeta inspired by old store signs, for the magazine’s logo, page markers and titling. The main headlines are set in Grifo Combo, a specially-tailored all-caps font that “randomly” combines Grifo, Grifito and Grifinito. The cover of the second issue was illustrated by André Carrilho.

The Holiday Special of Bon Appétit magazine from December 2018 makes prominent use of Beatle (Lián Types, 2014), a contemporary homage to bottom-heavy scripts with high contrast like Gonzales Jeanette and Brandywine. In the words of type designer Maximiliano Sproviero:

What if Platt R. Spencer and Charles P. Zaner were born in mid-20th century? What if instead of Beethoven or Chopin they were fan of The Beatles or maybe The Mamas & the Papas? Beatle is what I think those masters would have made with their hands if they were influenced by music of our 60s. Letters shouting for peace, like a true hippie does, with a lot of elegance.

Beatle is paired with words that mix caps from Rui Abreu’s Grifo and its extra condensed companion, Grifinito (R-Typography, 2016–17). The sans serif is Futura PT. The Bon Appétit logo is custom. It was drawn by Tal Leming “for Alex Grossman’s 2011 redesign of the magazine. The initial version of the previous logo was developed by Matthew Lenning and Matthew Carter based on Zuzana Licko’s Mrs Eaves.”

Creative Director: Chris Cristiano
Art Director: Christa Guerra
Designer: Bryan Fountain
Art Assistant: Annalee Soskin
Illustrations: Jaya Nicely
Photography: Alex Lau
Food styling: Susan Spungen
Prop styling: Kalen Kaminski

In the beginning of 2018 Texas Monthly launched its redesign, both in print and online. The goal was “to better capture the beauty and variety of Texas, in all its bright, zany glory.”

The redesign intended to bring a more appealing and clean look with a generous use of white space, allowing photographs and illustrations space to shine. Sections were reorganised and adjustments were made to improve legibility and navigation in the magazine.

And when it comes to the magazine and the website we can now answer, with great confidence, Yes, they are beautiful enough. In both mediums we’ve done a great deal of work to make Texas Monthly visually more appealing. Most noticeably, we’ve brought in new typefaces and added more white space to allow our gorgeous photos and illustrations to shine. Words are still important—of paramount importance—to us, but readers will no longer be faced with the monolithic walls of type that too often dominated our layouts.
–– TexasMonthly.com

The typefaces chosen are R-Typography's Grifo and Grifinito for headlines, while Hoefler & Co’s Chronicle, Ringside and Verlag are used in body copy and leads.

New website on the left, old website on the right.