Based on their logo, the entire business equipment of architecture studio Gluch + Fäth was revised and modernized. The square in the logo was retained as an ornamental element and can also be used playfully as a pattern in combination with the line. The spot color gray appears in various nuances in the printed materials.

FF Schulbuch Nord is used throughout.

Identity and website for Architecture Doing Place, an architecture and urban design studio from London. This project is an exercise of strengthening and synthesizing the previous identity of A.Do.P.

The logotype is conceived as an architectural element that vertebrates the identity. Its flexibility allows to adapt it to different supports. It is a system itself that mutates depending on the application, thus generating different layout.

With the aim of reinforcing the values of the studio and its cultural background, the selected color-scheme is based on African imaginary. The result is a more approachable and playful attitude.

The main element of this project is the website. The logotype was therefore designed to work primarily on the digital medium, reinforcing its functionality as an element of interaction and organization of the content.

Design by Carles Rodrigo. Web development by Àlex Garcés.

From Behance:

The “Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal” (Dutch Language Institute) researches and describes the Dutch language in all its aspects, such as vocabulary and grammar. Studio de Ronners created an identity in which full name of the institute was incorporated into the logo while keeping it applicable for diverse uses. Two slashes, or virgules where used in the logo, which has both classical and contemporary associations.

From Studio de Ronners’ website:

We chose FF Schulbuch Nord for the logo. This typeface, created by a Dutch type designer has a modern look and is easily readable. DTL Haarlemmer – another Dutch design – functions as the basis for the tags.

The graphic line (marker) can be deployed horizontically as well as vertically, which is a nod to the graphic language in a dictionary. The function of the marker is to explain words, but also to indicate a hierarchy. Studio De Ronners asked for the favourite words of all of the institute’s employees and applied them to personal business cards, t-shirts and other means of communication. This way, the identity also serves as a way to express the involvement of the employees.

Apart from being designed by dutch type designers, the typefaces share an institutional / educational background, that matches well with the Dutch Language Institute. Just van Rossum's FF Schulbuch (‘school book’) is based on mid-20th-century German text books. DTL Haarlemmer is a digital revival by Frank E. Blokland of the hot metal typeface Haarlemmer, originally designed by Jan van Krimpen in 1938 as a typeface in roman and italic, for setting the texts of the “Statenbijbel” – the ‘official’ Dutch protestant bible translation.

Source: www.graphicthoughtfacility.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Design Museum identity adopted in 2003.

Source: www.graphicthoughtfacility.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.flickr.com Image via “observista” on Flickr. License: All Rights Reserved.

In 2003, Graphic Thought Facility designed an identity for the Design Museum of London. The typographic aspect of that system has held remarkably intact ever since, even after an update that was announced last week. More about that news later, but first, the type.

Trademark: FontShop International GmbH. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Design Museum’s ID font is a combo of various glyphs from FF Schulbuch Nord and Süd. The Akzidenz-Grotesk-style ‘R’ was a unique addition.

The logo comes from FF Schulbuch, a typeface series derived from the various standards of German schoolbook authorities. The core of this design, especially FF Schulbuch Nord, is very similar to Helvetica (besides Schulbuch’s “early reader” forms of ‘a’ and ‘l’), but FF Schulbuch Süd, which serves most of the Design Museum identity, has several distinctive shapes (‘G, I, J, M, R, t, u, y’) based on German writing models. The uppercase ‘I’, with a horizontal bar and a ‘J’-hook bottom, is the most unfamiliar form for contemporary readers, which is likely why it was replaced with a more conventional ‘I’ in the logo.

The Design Museum incorporated this and other substitutions in a customized version of the FF Schulbuch fonts which they have used consistently in all their branded collateral since 2003. You can even see them in action on the museum’s Flash-based website that was active until 2006.

Source: designmuseum.org License: All Rights Reserved.

2015 Annual Review using the Design Museum’s custom version of FF Schulbuch Süd. (Click to enlarge.)

2016 Identity Update

This week, in advance of the institution’s big move to Kensington, West London in November 2016, the Design Museum identity got a subtle update:

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Source: www.designweek.co.uk License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.designweek.co.uk License: All Rights Reserved.

Studio Fernando Gutiérrez brings the museum’s custom typeface – or at least its spirit – into the logo and other accompanying wordmarks. The designers did make some adjustments to the type: “the” appears to come from Neue Helvetica instead of FF Schulbuch.

Logos © Design Museum. Comparison image by Stephen Coles. License: All Rights Reserved.

The original “DESIGN MUSEUM” mark has been revised as well, with the most apparent change to the ‘G’, which now curves inward slightly at the edge of the horizontal stroke, and has a rounder, more balanced feel. That old Schulbuch ‘G’ does seem to lean forward a bit, calling attention to itself, and if the point of this identity is to embue modernity, but not stand out too much, these little changes make a lot of sense.

Of course, some might say that Helvetica roots are too Swiss for a British institution, but after 13 years of speaking in this particular typographic voice, the Design Museum would sound strange using any other dialect.

Amsterdam based studio thonik designed the identity for this Rotterdam museum using a custom multiline typeface by Radim Peško (inspired by Lance Wyman’s 1968 Mexico City Olympics identity) and FF Schulbuch Nord (a Helvetica variant with alternate early reader forms for a and l).

The website text is set in plain old Arial, perhaps because the site was launched pre-webfonts.

“The Lost Worlds of Zdeněk Burian”, Czech painter and book illustrator. Published in the Naturkunden series by Matthes & Seitz.

The energetic brush script is Signalist by Mika Melvas. This Finnish typedesigner has released quite a few interesting scripts in the past years, see the upright and angular Saline in particular. Signalist was picked by David Sudweeks for Typographica’s Typefaces of 2012. In his review, he wrote:

The texture is just uneven enough to be believable, and yet sufficiently normalized to not draw undue attention to any individual part. And it accomplishes all this with a minimal cast; the face abstains from the present arms race for fully-loaded script fonts, itself containing no alternates or non-standard ligatures.

By and large I agree with this view, but looking at the two mid-word letters ‘r’ that don’t connect from the preceding ‘e’ and ‘o’, I wish there were a more cursive solution for this.

Apart from that, it is an admirable cover. Burian’s illustration style, the reduced color palette and the material — a coarse cloth — help to evoke an appropriate 1950s/1960s atmosphere. Although colleague Sudweeks regards Signalist “as fully contemporary”, I’d argue that the typeface has a hand in this retro vibe as well.