Nicho de Bichos is one of the oldest petshops in Rio. 20 years old this year, but brand spanking new with a new identity designed by Plau with the help of Fabio Corazza, an amazing illustrator from São Paulo.

The logotype is hand-lettering inspired by the multi-functional Neutra, which we used for the text.

Even though the illustration sets the retro-modern tone, the typeface Neutraface (as always) lends just the right touch for the communication and complements the illos ever so nicely.

On the store’s interior decor, we used Filmotype Brooklyn, adding a touch of casual/handmade to an otherwise geometric look.

For Pista Malmø’s spring classic race, the 2013 site builds upon earlier years’ graphic profiles. With Neutraface as a starting point we needed a fitting text face and webfont stand-in for titling. Proxima Nova, albeit a tad ubiquitous at this point, was a good match. Mark Simonson’s Art Deco influences are toned-down, but still evident in the minuscule ‘a’, among other glyphs.

The titling stand-in proved to be difficult a task: Brandon Grotesque’s corners were too soft, Le Havre used a faux-bold and had other inconsistencies, and Relay had apertures that were far too open. The answer was in front of my nose – Norwegian foundry Monokrom’s recent release Telefon was a perfect match. With one exception – the ‘R’s leg connected near the stem, rather than right out on the bowl. Luckily, Monokrom was kind enough to sponsor with an alternate ‘R’, making for a special little event.

Photo © Gustaf Emanuelsson 2013

FF Meta Serif Web Pro for copy.

Freight Sans Pro for headers, navigation elements, and asides.

Symbolset for symbol fonts.

The wave of icons as webfonts is upon us. Among the finest is Symbolset. Almost all options boast the cliché of legibility at small sizes, yet personality at large sizes, but what sets Symbolset apart is the advent of OpenType ligatures. JavaScript even translates these same features to the web.

Studiomates’ Oak Studios are behind the service, with Alonzo Felix (Tightrope) and Mike Fortress (Deming) growing from their Lost Type roots.

Rather than keeping to in-house icon sets, Symbolset has gone on to publish SS Symbolicons from Sensible World and most recently SS Pika from Dutch Icon, making them a legitimate webfont icon foundry.

The site itself employs Michael Abbink’s FF Kievit eloquently throughout, pairing robust weights at copy size with lighter text at larger sizes. The wordmark is in Kievit as well, with a ‘y’ based off of a rotated ‘h’.

A very minimal and typographic focussed portfolio website of a freelance web designer & front-end developer.