The exhibition scenography for Celtes: un millénaire d’images (“Celts, a thousand years of images”) was pretty minimalist. In a sober and warmly coloured layout, the light was focused on the objects displayed and some text captions printed on the walls. Texts were designed with underlined TheW Clan GZA for titles and its less quirky counterpart TheW NYC for paragraph of text. These two fonts were also used for the design of the exhibition poster, and material such as educational videos produced in the exhibition.

From Laténium:

Celtic motifs reveal a universe of metamorphoses defying the laws of nature, where the boundaries between animal, plant and human are blurred, while the sky and earth seem to communicate with the underworld. Jewelry, weapons, figurines, ritual instruments, statuary, coins and crockery: the extraordinary variety of Celtic arts shows that the imaginary, the supernatural and the marvelous impregnated all the activity spheres of these populations. As presented in “A Millennium of Images”, Celtic art manifests an enchantment of everyday life.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the opening of the exhibition happened on May 12th instead of March 29th, as initially planned. For the same reason, it was unfortunately closed to the public for most of its duration.

TheW Clan GZA & TheW NYC are part of TheW family and are available from Swiss Typefaces.

Type Life #1 was the first edition in a series of printed publications about design, typography and lifestyle, presented by Swiss Typefaces. Published in June 2017, it was soon sold out. Letter lovers who missed out on securing a copy can now rejoice: Type Life #1 is available again. The new edition is not just a reprint, but an enhanced update. It boosts four more pages and a revised design with new colors. The content was extended, too. In addition to new images, version 2 features several new typefaces that were created in the past months.

Type Life is packed to the brim with letterforms, and yet it is not a specimen. It’s a celebration of style and a wellspring of inspiration. Instead of long texts, there are lots of images, including photography, illustration, lettering, and exclusive previews of upcoming typefaces, forming a highly visual experience. Each issue is devoted to one chosen theme, and is made in collaboration with guest artists, illustrators, and designers. The printing process along with the use of metallic and neon colors is a key aspect. Apart from the format of a newspaper magazine, the identity of Type Life changes with every issue, depending on the topics and the guests.

The inaugural issue is about the Lab. In this Research & Development department, the designers of Swiss Typefaces explore new ideas for future fonts. Two of the Lab fonts are showcased in detail: BRRR is a playful wide Grotesk with a great deal of disruptive details. A spin-off from Simplon Mono, it was initially created to design a poster series for Swiss artist Simon Paccaud. KRSNA started out as a custom version of NewPanam Skyline, made for two vinyl record sleeves by Geneva-based musician Grace Core. This experimental typeface abandons the convention of a continuous baseline and introduces a three-storey space where the letters can sit at the top, center or bottom, with the remaining space filled by bars and spikes. The resulting word images are captivating patterns with logo-like qualities. Type Life reveals how BRRR and KRSNA came into being by depicting preliminary sketches, evolutionary steps, and photos of experiments made during trips. Reproductions of the very first applications show the fonts in context.

The updated edition also provides a glimpse into two upcoming Lab releases. KOPYME is a brutalist typeface with monospaced characters of extra wide proportions. Its horizontal nature is offset by diagonals that shoot across the glyph space like laser beams. They crash through the baseline, extending the underlying grid by a fourth underground level, and adding to the KOPYME’s kinetic energy. Black Mamba is an offshoot of the SangBleu series. Its swash letterforms are melting and churning as if they were drawn under the influence of the intoxicating Aztec elixirs mentioned in “The King, His Court, The Explorer & The Gift”, the essay included in the SangBleu Book.

Guest contributor is Thomas Louzoun aka Zombie Tears, a French art director, illustrator and tattoo artist. His whimsical drawings and handmade letterings were created specifically for Type Life. They are complemented by samples of recently released fonts like the fat display serif IKANSEEYOUALL and the bonkers Euclid Stencil, and previews of fonts that were in the making at the time of the publication, like new styles for TheW Clan (ODB & GZA, in addition to already released RZA).

An underlying theme in Type Life #1 is the confrontation of opposites. Systematic typography is interspersed with footloose lettering, accurate vector shapes are shown side by side with drippy comic blackletter. Highbrow clashes with subculture when an icon of the Swiss International Style gets remixed with street art. Past meets present also in the typeface designs that always and inevitably are contextualized in history. The digital is contrasted with the analog, the local with the cosmopolitan, the abstract with the personal. On a formal level, all of this is represented by the combination of uncoated newsprint and glamorous spot colors. The unique color palette featuring Pantone neon colors along with silver and black is a defining element of the publication’s identity.

Type Life issue #1 v2 was printed in an edition of 1,500 copies. It is now available exclusively from Physical Company. Fonts are available on Swiss Typefaces.

Cover, with magazine logo set in Ikanseeyouall. The theme is set in SangBleu OG Condensed, with showings of Krsna and Kopyme underneath.

outlined Krsna used as a frame.

Type amidst lettering by Thomas Louzoun: “Type Life Choose Us” is set in Black Mamba.

Capital K’s set in Euclid Stencil and Krsna. The font names are set in Brrr .

Magazine title set in SangBleu Empire, number in SangBleu Courtesan, subtitle in TheW Clan ODB and fine print in Suisse Int’l.

In the third issue of Type Life, Swiss Typefaces take a look beyond their own work and celebrate contemporary type made by others. The Swiss design studio compiled a selection of their favorite typefaces, licensed the fonts and used them to design a magazine. The resulting specimen of “Non-Swiss Typefaces We Like 1569–2018” comes with a text by Florian Hardwig (Fonts In Use) and is visually enriched with works by lettering artist Julien Priez (boogypaper).

Type Life 3 showcases 19 fonts from 19 international foundries: 29Letters, Adobe Type, Commercial Type, CSTM Fonts, Dinamo Typefaces, DSType, Extrabrut.Shop, Future Fonts, Hoefler & Co., Letters From Sweden, Linotype, Milieu Grotesque, Or Type, Production Type, Sharp Type, Sportsfonts.com, The Enschedé Font Foundry, Typotheque, and Velvetyne Typefoundry. The selection is a representative sample for the diversity in type design and gives an illuminating overview of the current scene. While the majority of the fonts was released in the past few years, many draw inspiration from all kinds of sources from previous eras. There is blackletter, script, slab serif, sans serif, and more. This – a stress on newness, historical references, and a vast stylistic plurality – reflects three major trends in today’s typography, as Florian Hardwig points out in his introduction. Other recurring themes that he identifies as being symptomatic for 2018 include highly conceptual projects and a quest for extreme aesthetics. At the same time there are functional fonts designed to solve specific problems. Just like the fonts, the type designers who created them have diverse backgrounds, in terms of geography, or how they entered the field. The represented distribution models range from traditional licensing to subscriptions, free and open-sourced fonts, as well as experimental or even unfinished releases.

Each issue of Type Life features a guest contributor. This time it’s the up-and-coming French lettering artist Julien Priez. A graduate of École Estienne, Paris, he’s a member of the international collective High on Type, best known for organizing the annual festival All Eyes on Type. Priez gives workshops at various schools and is an instructor at the prestigious TypeParis program. His work oscillates between the analog and the digital. Alphabets are first calligraphed, then cut in wood, and eventually digitized. Priez is just as comfortable painting meter-high letters with a triple brush on a wood fence as he is animating ornate pixel letters with kaleidoscopic patterns. Type Life #3 shows a range of his repertoire, starting with a still from his animated Nightmare Alphabet and two of his in-progress fonts Boogyroma and Boogylink on the cover. Mandinor Gothic is used to render the word “KING” on top of a kinetic gesture. The next page answers with “KONG”, in letterforms that pay homage to Jean Midolle’s Alphabet Lapidaire Monstre from 1835. With such historical references and the stunning stylistic versatility, Priez’ work is a perfect fit for the content of this issue.

At a whopping 40 pages, Type Life 3 is the most substantial issue so far. It’s printed in three Pantone spot colors plus silver and black, on two different paper stocks including transparent paper.

“Dream” set in Boogyroma and “Chasers” set in Boogylink, two in-progress typefaces by Julien Priez. Foundry names set in TheW Clan GZA by Swiss Typefaces. The caption that mentions the typefaces is set in Suisse Int’l Condensed.

Essay, set in SangBleu Republic (body text) and Suisse Int’l Mono (streamers, side notes). The green type on the left and at the very top of the right page is KOPYME As Uzual.

Galapagos (Felix Salut, Dinamo) and Xprmntal 01 (CSTM Fonts) visiting each other’s page. Typeface names (top) are in KRSNA. In the margins left and right, the foundry names are set in stacked letters from KOPYME (Swiss Typefaces).

Winner (Sportsfonts.com) × Quarto (Hoefler & Co.)

A pattern of Patron (Milieu Grotesque) with a guest appearance by Vincent (Letraset) is juxtaposed with a collage featuring elements from a Caslon Old Face specimen by H.W. Caslon & Co. from 1924.

On the left, a page from the book Il perfetto Scrittore Di M. Gio. Francesco Cresci, Italy, 16th century. On the right, (raster) pattern tiles are mixed with Frank Adebiaye’s Montchauve (Velvetyne).

Perfil (DSType) and Cardinal (Production Type). Cameo: Magnificat.

Julien Priez’ Mandinor Gothic in combination with his lettering.

Pattern by Julien Priez, printed in fluorescent and metallic ink.

Separat (Gunmad, OR Type) on the left, and Azal (Pascal Zoghbi, 29 Letters) as well as a tag lettering on the right hand.

Times Europa (Linotype) vs. Line (Letters from Sweden), with interventions by Good Vibrations and Block Up (Letraset).

Type that looks like it cannot be moved, and type that looks like it couldn’t sit still for a second: Berton Hasebe’s Styrene (Commercial Type) and Jérémy Landes’ Digestive (Triple Studio).

Thesaurus Display (Typotheque) × Respira Black (Sharp Type)

Feature page with Benoît Brun’s Shakotan (work in progress), printed in neon spot color.

On the left, a selection of A monograms (mostly dating back to the 15th and 16th century) shine through their overlying page with a big silver A set in Bram de Does’ Lexicon No. 2 (The Enschedé Font Foundry).

Pull quote in SangBleu Sunrise, printed in silver metallic ink.

Back cover with a sneak preview of the upcoming KOPYME and SuisseU.