Beirut Re-Store is a humanitarian initiative, founded by creatives, aiming at helping restore Beirut after the tragic explosion of August 2020. It is an online marketplace that offers a selection of artworks donated by artists and designers of all kinds: proceeds will go to the Beirut Emergency Fund 2020, which will distribute the money to well-vetted NGOs.

Bureau Antoine Roux, in collaboration with Laura Tabet and assisted by Marwan Kaabour, used Proto Grotesk incl. Proto Grotesk Mono from Production Type for the charity’s identity. The principle of alternating black and white blocks catches the eye and evokes the idea of re-construction through the stacked arrangement of the text. The initiative is very much active on Instagram (@beirutrestore), where we can see a special focus on the artists who donated their works. The identity works well in this media: the association between the artists’ names and their donations is immediately visible, and the black and white blocks provide structure to the diverse range of artworks. The website is clear and dynamic at the same time. The pages are framesd by horizontal scrolling lines of text set in Proto Grotesk Mono, the text repeating itself, in a feeling of emergency: these thin contrasted lines also call to mind security strips enclosing dangerous sites. The monospaced Proto Grotesk is there used for its great legibility and its technical aspect, adding a visual metaphor and at the same time transferring information in the most comprehensible way possible.

Instagram account.

Website.

Advert published in Vanity Fair.

Tying in with its famous collaborations, W magazine produced a special issue called “Director’s Cut”. For this edition, the magazine invited four film directors – Alfonso Cuaròn, Yorgos Lanthimos, Spike Lee, and Marielle Heller – to create a cinematic photoshoot staging actresses they consider as their muses. This led to four different stories where cinema and fashion go hand in hand.

For the four covers, art directors Cian Browne and Jeff Burch chose Proto Grotesk Mono from Production Type. This monospaced version calls to mind what movie scripts used to look like when they were still typed with a typewriter: we immediately fall into the imagery of film, turning the photos into stills.

Proto Grotesk Mono is here mostly visible in caps, where we see some softer details that make up its originality: Where lowercase letters exhibit an assumed mechanical aesthetic, the lightness of the curved capital letters add a humanistic touch to the typeface design. This reinterpretation of monospaced types offers a contemporary perspective, while still keeping their legacy going.

As Danish architectural studio Henning Larsen celebrated 60 years of practice in 2019, they presented their first monograph: It begins with curiosity, a book that explores how architecture shapes the communities, contexts and cultures that define our lives.

The design of the book (Sam Sandvig Hosman x Henning Larsen) comes from the idea of unboxing a gift. The red dust-jacket wrapped around the textile hardcover tempts the user to unwrap and open the book. A traditional hardcover balances the playful treatment of photography, allowing no two architectural projects to be treated the same and thus supporting the unique context of each project.​

Like a building, It begins with curiosity is a book built up of a sequence of spaces: Past, Present, and Future. These three sections include imagery and text about Henning Larsen, voiced by either staff or outside writers close to the practice, such as architectural historian Hans Ibelings and Kent Martinussen of the Danish Architecture Center.

Content from the hands of people at Henning Larsen is set in various weights of the modern san-serif typeface Proto Grotesk from Production Type (incl. its monospaced styles). Content by writers outside of Henning Larsen are set in the academic serif typeface Stanley from Optimo. This typographic distinction gives each party a unique voice that eventually comes into dialogue with each other in the epilogue of the book.

You can also read more at ArchDaily. It begins with curiosity can be purchased from Arvinius + Orfeus Publishing.

Production Type’s Proto Collection in use for Fretboard Journal, a quarterly print magazine for instrument lovers. Design director André Mora recently refreshed the typographic palette. Starting with issue No. 40, he added a number of Proto fonts to the mix.

While the magazine logo, the subheads, and all body copy are still set in various optical sizes from John Downer’s Paperback, the opening spreads now feature members of Jean-Baptiste Levée’s exploration into early grots and egyptians. In addition to Proto Grotesk and Proto Slab, Mora makes skilled and varied use of the Mono and Slab Condensed styles, too. These appeared in Fretboard Journal already prior to their official release in 2019. The palette is completed by Evert Bloemsma’s FF Balance which is used for captions and other small print.

“Interesting Things”: Proto Slab Condensed Bold for the headline, Paperback for the deck, and caps from Balance for the credits.

“A Southern Line”: Proto Grotesk in all caps from the Bold (yellow) and Regular (white) weights.

Proto Slab Bold for “Diamonds in the Rough”.

Proto Slab Condensed Bold is used with one of its alternate forms for r: The glyph with the vertically cut ending can be accessed via Stylistic Set 7.

Proto Grotesk Bold (black) together with the monospaced Proto Grotesk Mono Light (red and underlined), for a feature about Robert “Big Sandy” Williams.

“Research and Development”: Proto Slab Bold.

Proto Grotesk Bold paired with Proto Slab ExtraLight. With their comparable weights and proportions, the four families are made to be used together.

“A Pirate’s Life For Me” comes in caps from Proto Grotesk Mono Bold.

Proto Slab Condensed Black in all caps for “Bluegrass Like Breathing”.