Written in 1904, Renée Vivien’s first novel Une femme m’apparut opens with a dialogue between two women lovers. In a Symbolist and decadent language, two visions of love intertwine and confront each other – a poetic reminder that our questions about relationships are timeless.

This booklet, which features an excerpt from Renée Vivien’s original novel, has been created by Papier Charbon with the goal of a forthcoming complete reissue of the book. Illustrations by Léna Borsoi.

Both the booklet and the accompanying poster are set in Ninna Regular (designed by Margot Lévêque) alongside a Baskerville [it’s BBB Baskervvol and Baskerville (Storm), see comments] for the body text.

Tactus Sacrorum (“The Touch of the Sacred”) is a book designed by Martin Utíkal about the new presbytery adjustment in the Saint Vitus, Wenceslas and Adalbert Cathedral in Prague. It was designed by ARN Studio, which recently won the German Design Award. Cigars Light by Heavyweight is used in caps on the titles, and Baskerville by Storm Type Foundry for the body copy. 20×30 cm, 2019.

On the official theatrical release poster, Periódico Display UltraBlack is used in all caps for the title. The blurbs are set in Baskerville Original 120, with credits in Akzidenz-Grotesk Condensed.

Illustrator and designer Akiko Stehrenberger was commissioned to create two distinct posters for Joe Talbot’s 2019 film The Last Black Man in San Francisco.

The posters – while having similar aesthetic styles – use different typefaces. The first poster features Periódico, and the second Caslon Graphique. Both use tight and blocky styling to give the film a 1970s feel.

[More info on IMDb]

This alternative poster features a centered and tight Caslon Graphique.

A text of John Baskerville’s fellow countryman, John Soane (1753–1837) runs throughout the website, designed for Chilean artist Martín La Roche Contreras. The layout draws its origin from the printed page and ends with “footnotes” in form of a contact section. The website utilises the potential infinity of digital material to push associations between word and image beyond a simple 1:1 relationship. Hover states are used to activate specific images to lure the user in to explore further. František Štorm’s flourishes (which are included in his Baskerville Original) rotate while major slideshows are being loaded in the background.

From Stefan Thorsteinsson:

Lettre Internationale is one of the leading cultural and political publications in Europe, with independent offices in Copenhagen, Budapest, Berlin, Madrid, Bucharest, Moscow and Rome. The design uses a lot of expressive type to serve as illustrations and set the tone for the individual articles.

The magazine uses two typeface families from František Štorm — Baskerville Original (in a few different optical sizes), and the underused DynaGrotesk. The latter in particular stands out, especially in the massive all-caps uses. With its agressive diagonal cuts and off-kilter flared stems, it carries the design and the note in a fantastic way.

Literatur Spiegel is the monthly literary supplement of Germanys biggest news magazine Der Spiegel.

Co.Design:

In 2013, acclaimed filmmaker and author Errol Morris ran a bold experiment. With the collusion of the New York Times, he asked 45,000 readers to take an online test. The test allegedly measured whether or not readers were optimists or pessimists. But in reality, Morris was trying to find out if the typeface a statement was written in had any impact on a reader’s willingness to agree with that statement. Simply put, are some typefaces more believable than others? The answer is yes. Baskerville … was statistically more likely to influence the minds of readers.

As one might expect, the results of Morris’s experiment got a lot of attention from both inside and outside the design world. As much as I love to see typography leak into the mainstream media, I found this search for the most truthworthy typeface to be especially untrustworthy, despite coming from a man whose work I otherwise respect. What disappointed me most was the weak methodology behind the experiment. The typefaces selected for the test were Baskerville, Computer Modern, Georgia, Helvetica, Comic Sans and Trebuchet. Why these six? Morris tells Co.Design:

“I’d like to say there’s something that really went into it, that was scientific, and I wanted a combination of serif and sans serif fonts, so we picked three of each. It could have been more, but we picked six. Why those six? Your guess is as good as mine.”

Yikes. That is less than rigorous. It’s not so surprising Baskerville performed best among this bunch. Only Georgia and Helvetica were any competition at all — the others being very poorly drawn, much less readable, not intended for long texts, or all of the above.

Co.Design concludes their Morris interview with this question: “have the results of your Baskerville experiment changed the typefaces you use?”

“Oh yes, I’m drinking my own Kool-Aid now. I used to write all of my manuscripts in Bembo. Now I write them in Baskerville.”

Um, but Bembo was not even part of your test! What if Bembo is really the most trustworthy of all?!

Oh well, at least Pentagram made something handsome out of this pile of poop:

“The results of Morris’s experiment were published online in a two-part essay called Hear, All Ye People; Hearken, O Earth! and have now been put into print, as the 44th edition of the Pentagram Papers, the monograph that the design firm Pentagram sends to an exclusive list of individuals each year. Pentagram partner and long-time Morris collaborator Michael Bierut put together the typographically exquisite monograph, with with the help of designer Jessica Svendsen.”

To Morris’ credit, once you get past the triviality of the experiment, his essay tells a fascinating and humanizing tale of the man behind the 18th-century typeface, John Baskerville. I was very pleased to see that Bierut and Svendsen added some authenticity by using the only digital Baskerville that comes anywhere close to Mr. Baskerville’s original type: František Štorm’s Baskerville Original. The family has two size-specific masters: “120” for large type, “10” for small. These “optical sizes” emulate the physical design compensations of metal type, allowing headlines to be delicate and showy, while body text is open, sturdy, and readable. All other digital Baskervilles have only one size, often traced from the face of some mid-range size, making it too feeble for text yet lacking the elegance of a titling face.

I haven’t yet seen Pentagram’s book in person, but it looks like a fun piece. I hope somewhere amid Morris’ history of Baskerville they included some facts about the actual fonts they used to set the text — facts which are potentially just as interesting to those who care to read a book about the effects of typeface choice.

Russell Maret is a private press printer working in New York City who also designs typefaces as metal fonts specifically for his books.

The Gill Sans for the navigation is displayed using images and the rendering is a bit uneven, presumably due to inconsistent Photoshop antialiasing. But the Baskerville Original (a much sturdier version of the classic than most) does quite well as a webfont, at least on my MacBook screen.

Ben Scott:

The design and branding for Saltygirl Jewelry is shaped by the rich colors, textures, and vibrant nature of the Hawaiian landscape where the company is based. We were inspired by Amber’s love of the ocean and the environment where she creates. The design system and logo are reminiscent of exotic ocean animals, treasures washed up on black sand beaches, and tropical plants found in the artist’s rainforest location.

The rugged and natural Hadriano is paired with the subtle swashes of Štorm’s Baskerville Original Italic.