How do you know if you’ve made it? A sure sign that your social media presence is keenly felt around the world is when Instagram co-opts your aesthetic and bakes it into the system. That’s what happened in July 2025, when Spanish singer Rosalía (26.8m followers) became the progenitor of a distinctive new Instagram font, Rosalía.vt, based on her own handwriting.

Replete with a set of secret emojis and usable across reels and stories, the all-caps font was greeted with fervour by the singer’s legions of fans. But what does it mean for design? We spoke to Spike Spondike, senior typeface designer at Monotype, about this new trend in personal branding and how every aspect of design can be co-opted to build an identity.

Wallpaper*: As a designer, what's your opinion of the way platforms create these kinds of typefaces and visual identities?

Spike Spondike: It’s no surprise that platforms like Instagram commission bespoke typefaces. They are offering a wide range of customisation for their creators! Content creators are brands. And to be successful, brands need to build a recognisable, consistent identity. Typefaces are a crucial element in expressing a brand’s tone of voice and personality.

Instagram and other platforms could easily license off-the-shelf fonts, but to keep ahead of the game, they offer many fonts exclusive to them. I’ve had the pleasure of working on some of these myself. All of the bespoke fonts in Instagram stories and reels are just as much about identifying with the Instagram brand as with the content creators and users.

There is a real shift in graphic design where brands, in general, are emphasising typography and reducing the use of traditional graphics. This isn’t just within the world of social media. With this trend, brands are using typefaces that are unique to them [to speak] to their target audience.

Wallpaper* Do you think they’re devaluing the work of designers?

SS: No, I don’t think so. A typeface inspired by handwriting requires the expertise of a designer to transform the analogue drawings into a digital format. And typeface design within the branding context is most often a collaboration between the brand, a branding agency, and the typeface designer. This is no different. A social media platform commissions a typeface. They use a pop artist’s handwriting as the design. A type foundry draws it and turns it all into a usable font.

From my experience, I would assume that Rosalía (the singer) didn’t draw every single letter and symbol of Rosalía (the font). She would have probably drawn the A-Z, numbers and some punctuation, but the typeface designer would need to fill in the blanks and draw the remaining glyph set based on the design. If Rosalía has as many characters as the other custom fonts designed for Instagram, that’s about 749 glyphs!

W*: Rosalía seems to be created to lean into a desire to convey more ‘authenticity’ – any thoughts?

SS: You can’t get much more authentic to your own brand than using your own handwriting. From the sounds of it, the collab with Rosalía is to introduce new ways to share what you’re listening to on Spotify directly through Notes, making connections with friends easier.

I think Instagram did a good job of filling the gaps in fonts offered in stories and reels. There wasn’t a handwritten font offered until now. The intention is to inspire creativity and risk-taking, and a grungy brushstroke design does the job in connecting to Instagram’s younger fanbase, especially fans of Rosalía. Not to mention connecting with Spanish culture.

W*: How is celebrity branding driving more emotional, expressive design and what creative and technical design considerations go into creating celebrity-inspired fonts like Rosalía?

SS: Handwriting fonts are really difficult to get right. From a technical and production standpoint, a brushed typeface is time-consuming and tricky – many, many nodes and segments. And for a handwriting font to look ‘authentic’, you also need many variations of each letter. There are way too many handwritten fonts out in the wild that don’t offer these variations, and of course, they don’t look like true handwriting.

There is also a lot of engineering and scripting behind these fonts to make them work authentically right out of the box. I think whether you love the Rosalía font or hate it, it’s a high-quality font, offering many stylistic variations; it’s crafted well, and covers a massive number of languages.

W*: What role do typefaces play in building lasting brand identity, ie, helping celebrities like Mariah Carey reinforce their personal brand and emotional connection with fans?

SS: Typefaces have played a role in the branding of celebrities for decades. Not all celebrities and pop stars can say they have an entire typeface, but just look at their word marks and the emotional connections they make with their fans – The Beatles, KISS, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Prince, ABBA – I could go on for days. Now that I think of it, it would be a fun exercise to draw iconic band names in other bands’ iconic designs.

Maybe it has already been done? Custom fonts are essential to creating engaging, memorable content. The right typeface makes content more accessible and enjoyable, which in turn encourages users to spend more time with it. At the same time, a poorly chosen font, will lead to a lack of engagement and frustration. One thing is for sure, you can’t please everyone, so offering a variety of choices can help to keep all of your users happy.

W*: Finally, do you think the font points to a future of greater personalisation? Are you seeing anyone creating fonts using AI yet? Is that next?

SS: There is definitely a future of greater personalisation within fonts. Variable fonts are already doing this. Depending on what axes are set up in the fonts, users can change a number of characteristics. Fonts can automatically change weights, widths, slants, all depending on what devices you are using, or based on your screen size. Variable fonts can even change serif styles. And there’s some really cool examples of experimental variable fonts that dial expression up and down in quite extreme ways.

AI is already being used to aid with font recommendations, font identification, and font pairing. As I mentioned before, AI will provide the possibility of more personalised experiences in the digital world, offering text that can respond to our individual preferences and needs, changing fonts, spacing, colours, widths, weights.

At Monotype, we are experimenting with AI as we speak. Monotype teamed up with Matthieu Salvaggio, the founder of Blaze Type. Blaze Type co-created six limited fonts with an AI type-design tool to explore what a machine would design if provided with a limited range of characters. The results were full of imperfections but offered an interesting insight into letter design variations.

Internally, we’re also exploring the possibilities and promise that this evolving partnership between human designers and AI will bring. As we [develop] new ways of working creatively, the human touch, keen eye, and expertise of typeface designers and font engineers remain the guiding light at the centre.

Monotype.com, @ByMonotype, @Rosalia.vt

Mid-Century Type sets out to chronicle the rapid change in graphic design in the post-war era, as the commercial world collided head-on with the aesthetics and aspirations of modernist-minded designers. Richly illustrated throughout, typographer and graphic designer David Jury’s book ably captures a richly eclectic era, suffused with the colour and form enabled by new typesetting and printing technologies.

Inside Mid-Century Type, a celebration of graphic design 

The book surveys all forms of graphic art from the era, from typography and corporate identity through to the posters, advertising and magazine design that came to define the birth of pop culture. There are also digressions into signage design for transportation – from Noorda and Vignelli’s NY subway maps and signage to the huge swathes of public work undertaken by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert in the UK.

There’s also a digression into book cover design and film and TV credits – always a rich source of graphical innovation. Although many of the book’s 450 images might be familiar, it’s especially helpful to have them rounded up in a single, indexed place (although the index strangely shows no mention of the influential Design Research Unit), and Jury is especially good at tracking the partnerships, collaborations and commercial and academic associations that often underpinned the most interesting work. 

The midcentury was a period of massive change for graphics, as layout technologies emerged and evolved, vastly increasing the flexibility, speed and variety of layouts. Letraset, introduced in 1959, transformed the small graphic design office, whilst phototypesetting, a precursor to digital desktop publishing, started the wholesale move away from traditional hot metal type. 

Mid-Century Type captures the very best of the new design’s adaptability to a changing world, a world of mass transit, documentaries, pop music and political posters. Although the grid-driven rigour of modernism clung on in certain quarters, the era’s most memorable visual culture built on and transcended tradition, extending graphic art into every facet of modern life. 

Mid-Century Type: Typography, Graphics, Designers by David Jury, £40, Merrell Publishers, MerrellPublishers.com

Also available from Amazon

In its short existence, Sir Jony Ive’s studio, LoveFrom, has demonstrated that it is prepared to go above and beyond in its creative endeavours. Bringing together designers, architects, musicians, filmmakers, writers, engineers and artists, LoveFrom is based out of San Francisco and London. 

Early work includes the Terra Carta Seal, and ongoing work with Ferrari, as well as the announcement of a series of scholarships at CCA and RISD in the US, and London’s RCA. 

Before any of that work had been announced, Ive and his key collaborators, Marc Newson and Peter Saville, set to work on shaping LoveFrom’s identity. Working with Chris Wilson, former head of UI design at Apple (and an old university friend of Ive), engineer Patch Kessler and Milan-based typographer Antonio Cavedoni, the team began a multi-year design and research project.

The making of LoveFrom, Serif

Jony Ive: Marc and I started a conversation with Peter, who became a part of LoveFrom. He had a really lovely sense of [how to use] our identity, which wasn’t to constrain it with a traditional logotype, but to use it in order to invite a dialogue.

Peter Saville: My most active contribution came when Jony asked me what the LoveFrom logotype should be. I was actually really surprised they’d managed to register ‘LoveFrom’ as almost every combination of words has been taken.

Starting back in autumn 2019, the initial discussions were about the words themselves, and how they should be presented. 

Peter Saville: Jony asked me about how it should look. It was difficult at the beginning because of the familiarity of these two words, ‘love’ and ‘from’. I initially thought it should be in a modest typeface, maybe a neutral sans serif. However, the most significant thing I contributed was the comma. This gives the words a sincerity and places them on one side of a dialogue. It performs this kind of inclusive act. 

Jony Ive: Peter’s insight was that LoveFrom’s approach could be defined by the comma in the logotype. Chris and Antonio’s work on our website makes it very clear how that works in practice. 

One of the first jumping-off points for the project was a Saville-designed album cover. The 1981 album by Blackpool band Section 25, Always Now, featured a full-bleed typographic composition set in Bembo. 

Peter Saville: I knew that cover had made a big impact on Jony. The idea of using a comma was very well received by the team, so from that point on it became a question of typography. I’m not familiar with many logotypes that have commas in them. Full stops, yes. 

Jony Ive: The first typefaces we looked at weren’t crafted in a way that satisfied our creative nature. We started with Bembo before looking at Baskerville and then realised that we’d never find something that we totally loved, so why [not] develop one for ourselves?

LoveFrom, Serif was born. Its first official public outing was on the LoveFrom website, and its first appearance in print in the recent limited-edition Steve Jobs book, Make Something Wonderful; the typeface is also used in the Terra Carta Seal and the LoveFrom design for the official emblem of the Coronation of King Charles III. Years in the making, the effortless simplicity of the letterforms belies a hugely complex, long-winded process. 

Marc Newson: It struck me at the outset as a really curious endeavour – when you really manipulate and play with fonts. Fonts are really, really technical things. Even being a graphic designer doesn’t entitle you to understand typesetting. It’s an old-school preoccupation. 

Peter Saville: When Chris, Patch and Antonio came on board, it moved from Bembo to Baskerville. At which point I just sat back in wonder and admired their attention to detail. They have delivered their own extraordinary iteration of it. For the last 30 years at least there’s been a remarkable enthusiasm for typography. It didn’t used to be that way. Typography was once seen as boring. When I was at college, I remember falling asleep in the type-setting room. 

Marc Newson: Typography is a very analogue medium – a true craft. Jony and I find that craft compelling. Some might perceive it as anachronistic to even think about fonts. But that’s OK, because we love to do things that maybe other people don’t. It was a very conscious decision to focus on typography and have people like Chris and Antonio on board and give them these opportunities.

There are many reasons why John Baskerville’s eponymous typeface attracted the LoveFrom team. Baskerville (1707-1775) was an artistic and creative pioneer in many spheres, from paper-making to printing. Throughout his life, he printed numerous books, with a quality and simplicity of presentation that looked forward to the modern era. The original punches used for his most celebrated typeface are remarkable survivors, now in the care of Cambridge University. 

Cavedoni already owned a collection of antiquarian volumes set in Baskerville, whilst Robin Hull at Cambridge took exquisite macro photographs of these precise, tiny steel punches, with some letters just 1mm tall. Cavedoni, whose typographic credits include designing Apple’s seminal San Francisco font, describes Hull’s images as ‘an enormous breakthrough’. They revealed the shapes and eccentricities of the typeface in meticulous detail. 

Chris Wilson: A lot of people do custom typefaces these days just for the sake of it. We didn’t want to jump on this bandwagon. My intuition was that Baskerville felt like the right balance. There was a really interesting synergy with modern design throughout its history. I also quite enjoy the constraints.  

Antonio Cavedoni: [John] Baskerville was always in search of perfection. He talked at length about his love of letterforms. He was someone who made everything – the press, the ink, the paper, and of course the original punches for all the different sizes of type. His almost obstinate preoccupation with getting it right was very attractive. 

Jony Ive: I consider myself fairly ignorant of typography. But even though I don’t have Antonio’s exhaustive knowledge, I was still drawn to this beautiful face. Our approach was one of respect and reverence to Baskerville’s work. 

The long research and development process, which occupied Cavedoni and Wilson throughout the Covid lockdown, involved drafting and redrafting endless subtle variations of John Baskerville’s forms. As well as the printed page, Cavedoni researched slate letters cut by Baskerville, in addition to contemporary lettering manuals and the work of the typographer’s peers. 

LoveFrom, Serif is supremely flexible. The project included working on very light and very heavy iterations of the font, styles that simply wouldn’t have existed in the 18th century. Then there were numbers to design (John Baskerville only used old-style numerals), as well as italic weights, which have a flatter, more two-dimensional character. A  set of alternate shapes for many characters was also created, taking advantage of Baskerville’s different iterations of forms like the ‘R’, and ‘Q’. 

The typeface is optically sized – depending on the point size, the space between letters is dynamically adjusted to deal with different print quality or monitor resolution. There’s also a complex algorithmic approach to the curves, that blends them seamlessly into the straight lines of the descenders. 

Patch Kessler: At Apple, we spent a lot of time on curves to get things just right on things like the app tiles. It’s the same principal here, just massively more complicated, involving math, optics, and geometry. 

Marc Newson: Continuous curvature is a new concept to implement in type, the sort of thing that would once have required a super-computer. It’s a very compelling way to explore digital technology in a craft-based sense. You don’t often get examples where the two can harmoniously benefit each other.

Jony Ive: These forms are so extraordinarily beautiful, so pure, with a serenity and fluidity. The typeface was intended to be scalable and useful in many different manifestations, particularly digitally. We also wanted to share it for special collaborations, some of which I can’t talk about. 

Chris Wilson: There’s so much we can do when expressing it in the digital world. It’s something you can’t do with an off-the-shelf product.

Antonio Cavedoni: The typeface can be a platform for making bespoke pieces of lettering.

Jony Ive: I’ve always felt really strongly that you hope a design solution gets to the point where it doesn’t feel like there’s any other alternative. And that there’s no sense of a designer wagging their tail in your face.

Another early, under the radar outing for LoveFrom, Serif was in a self-published memorial book for Richard Rogers’ final project at Château La Coste, a project undertaken to ‘honour a dear friend’, according to Ive. Work is also apace to design a complementary sans serif (no prizes for guessing the name), all part of Ive’s desire to give LoveFrom the ultimate bespoke tool kit. 

Jony Ive: At its heart LoveFrom is about gathering together experts, people who are pre-eminent in their various fields. The tools we use as creatives tend to establish and reinforce the differences in our practice, not the similarities. When you make things with love and care you express your gratitude to humanity, to our species.

Peter Saville: In a way, I made my contribution 40 years ago when I realised that typography triggers certain contextual and cultural associations. I saw how it could be very evocative in creating a certain gravitas as well as a sense of cultural significance. I think pop culture in the 1980s turned a young generation on to type. But it’s also something that either works or it doesn’t.  

Marc Newson: On a project like this, we can spend as much time as we want – we are the client. Luxury is the wrong word, but we don’t often have this kind of opportunity in our line of work. There’s always space, not necessarily to improve, but to refine something. It’s simply about the detail. 

Peter Saville: Jony has that obsessive mania for everything – he’s very particular. You can obviously see that in his work for Apple. It results in extraordinary things. His approach is to say, ‘Let’s do it until there’s no more that can be done.’ LoveFrom, Serif evokes art and craftsmanship, values that Jony wanted to associate with LoveFrom. 

Jony Ive: Designers often talk about how we work, but not why. Our name describes our motivation, which is to be in service of humanity. It’s great to have a motivation of that gravity. LoveFrom, Serif speaks perfectly to our collective approach and to our experience. It has its basis in the physical world – via the original steel punches – and it has its final manifestation in the digital space. I can’t think of a better first product.

LoveFrom.com

A graduate of the master’s in Type Design at ECAL, Chiachi Chao is currently living in Lausanne. The Taiwanese designer created the Kleisch typeface as part of his final studies, describing it as a Latin serif typeface developed for bi-scriptural typesetting. ‘As a typographic designer with a background in Latin and Chinese, Kleisch is my attempt to bridge the connection between the Serif Latin typefaces with Ming typefaces,’ he says, asking ‘what are the similar traits that can bring together two different typefaces from different scripts?’

By blending Baroque and Neoclassical styles, Chao has created a flexible set of modern letterforms that can accommodate the varying weights of different Ming characters.

Research took him from the history of Western and Eastern writing styles, from the technical limitations of early printing to the speed of brushed Chinese calligraphic writing. The evolution of a moveable type version of Ming made the fluid marks and forms of each character much more formalised, while still remaining very distinct and different from conventional Latin lettering. ‘Inspired by the story of Caslon, I imagined myself as a punchcutter in the early 18th century, cutting a typeface based on the Baroque model, but adding the neoclassical taste of Neoclassical time. This is a transitional face between two transitional models,’ he says.

‘Kleisch consists of 16 styles with a variable font that offers adjustable axes (weight and contrast) to adapt with different Ming typefaces accordingly.’ The final typeface was based on the cuts of the 17th-century designers Miklós Tótfalusi Kis and Christoffel van Dijck and the 18th-century German-Dutch typographer Johann Michael Fleischmann. 

Dream collaborators: François Rappo, Radim Peško and Kasper Florio.

Wallpaper* Next Generation 2022

More young talents to watch – dubbed ‘22 rising stars for 2022’ and from creative fields spanning design, jewellery, transport, architecture, photography, fashion, and visual communication – can be discovered in the January 2022 Next Generation issue of Wallpaper*, and in this ongoing series at Wallpaper.com. 

INFORMATION

instagram.com/chiachi.chao

Our Next Generation showcase of outstanding new talents appears in the January 2022 issue of Wallpaper* (W*273). Subscribe today!

For the past 30 years, many of Paris' smarter brands have turned to Imprimerie du Marais (IdM) for the finer or more interesting sort of printed matter. Just a small sample of recent work includes an offset-printed folded invitation inspired by the artwork of Eva Jospin for the Dior haute couture show at the Rodin Museum; a magazine, four-colour offset-printed on both sides of translucent paper with transparent hot foil stamping on the cover, for Samuel Ross; and similarly involved show invitations for Balenciaga, Balmain, Berluti, Givenchy and others. As of June 2021 though, Paris’ most fashionable print house is no longer du Marais. The business has a 1,500 sq m new home in Cité Griset, a block’s worth of a 19th-century industrial classic – a former foundry and factory buildings off Rue Oberkampf in the 11th  arrondissement – now redesigned by French architecture studio Ateliers Saint-Lazare (ASL). 

Mélody Maby-Przedborski, IdM’s communications director, describes its new home as a ‘forgotten treasure’. The building was opened in 1825 by Griset, one of the oldest family-owned companies in the world. Antoine Griset had established a precious metal foundry in the Marais in 1760 before opening a huge purpose-built operation, Cité Griset (it housed apartments for workers as well as industrial architecture). The company moved on again in 1920 and Cité Griset was chopped up into small factories and workshops (the Institut d’Etudes Supérieures des Arts is now housed in part of the building).

IdM took over what had been a cardboard box factory in need of a complete structural overhaul. It turned to Ateliers Saint-Lazare, formerly Studio Be-Poles, based in Paris and New York-and co-founded by architect Antoine Ricardou, and a long-term IdM client. A branding as well as architecture and design agency, ASL is the definitive 360-degree studio, working on everything from identity to interiors, with a project back catalogue that includes the Merci concept store and Le Pigalle hotel in Paris, Le Barn boutique hotel outside Paris, the NoMad hotel in New York and The Surf Club hotel in Miami.

Ricardou says he was inspired by IdM’s ‘audacious courage’ in opening up a place of craftsmanship and light-industry in the centre of Paris. He set out to create a contemporary creative factory that nodded to the building’s history but also pointed a way forward.

‘Antoine really wanted to make the building a manufacture again,’ says Maby-Przedborski, ‘but using lots of wood and glass rather than steel.’ ASL designed and produced crisp bespoke cabinetry and set it against all-white walls and exposed ducting to create a light-filled fantasy update of a pre-war workshop that never slips into pastiche.

The new building is a grand atelier, a conglomeration of eight interconnected workshops that can handle lithography, foiling, embossing, four-colour printing, letter pressing, stamping, screen printing and more. These techniques can be, and often are, combined in one piece of work and in a traditional or technically advanced and experimental fashion. This inter-connectivity, an easier advance of works through one workshop to another, was a big driver for the move. IdM’s new home, though, is also a theatre, a stage for the most elevated printing and paper-based arts.

Structurally, Ricardou’s key intervention was introducing a large open staircase to connect the building’s three levels and bring in more light. But, he says, the staircase also acts as a viewing platform, a way of immediately immersing you in the hum and energy of the workshops.

The new space is large enough for planned live events and talks exploring the distinctions between art and craft. But it also allows for day-to-day theatre. Maby-Przedborski is quick to emphasise that IdM has no in-house creative team. It is there to serve, dedicated to collaborating with outside creatives. A key priority in the design of the new HQ was allowing enough space that clients could see the workshops in action, understand processes and get a proper sense of what is possible and what might be possible, if collaborative creative energy was applied.

‘They really wanted to create a space for collaboration between clients and the printers,’ says Ricardou. ‘The job was really to create a showroom for inspiration. And that was the real challenge for us, to create a factory but also a comfortable place to work and think and get that balance right. You don’t go to Imprimerie du Marais with a precise idea of what you want to do, you get inspired by what they are, what they can do and what they can bring to you. There are times when you want to be in the workshops, following the process, and then you need space to think about what you want to do.’ Around the workshops Ricardou created are a series of wood and glass offices. ‘You can see the workshops but the offices have this warmth and comfort,' says Ricardou.

Maby-Przedborski says Ricardou found the perfect balance of industry and creativity. ‘I go and see brands and I see how studios work in fashion, design and music and how creativity drives people forward,’ she says.  ‘We have that same flow here.’

The new building’s extra space also allows brands to document and produce videos of Imprimerie du Marais’ workshops in action, should they wish. And many do. As Maby-Przedborski says, much of what the workshop produces is created in very limited numbers and for a select audience. These videos allow brands to share and ‘valourise’ their commitment to craftsmanship in all things to a wider audience.

IdM has understood, as have their smartest clients, that as communications became more digital, a brand’s printed materials have come to serve a different function. They are literal touchpoints and craft, care and materiality. At best, they have become remarkable, collective objects. And ironically, screen-centric living has encouraged an on-screen fetishisation of the physicality of fine print and packaging. As Maby-Przedborski says, YouTube and Instagram (and the rise of e-commerce) have made unboxing and unwrapping performative. As she says, these videos are a celebration of the ‘tactility, the magic of movement, the fluidity’ of the finest packaging.

IdM is a particularly Parisian business, its skillsets born of its local economy. Paris’ luxury goods brands have always seen packaging and printed material as central to their brand proposition. And they care as much about the skills and capabilities of their printshops as their seamstresses and leather workers. And ask just as much of them.

Imprimerie du Marais was founded by Charles Przedborski in 1971, though for the first 20 years of its life it printed books and created stationery and order forms for Parisian ready-to-wear makers, part of the Marais' then thriving ecosystem of specialist ateliers. Twenty years later, just as many of the ateliers in the Marais were falling victim to foreign competition, Charles’ son Jacky joined the company and gave it a new creative edge. Imprimerie du Marais developed a reputation for experimentation, developing new techniques and tackling the trickiest of commissions from the biggest names in fashion and luxury goods.

The printshop has also built relationships with creative agencies, art galleries and brands of all sorts, in Paris and far beyond. Six years ago it opened an outpost in London – though all production remains in Paris – and is now looking at opening up in the US as well.

We have studios in Paris and New York,’ says Ricardou. ‘And there are a lot of great printers around New York but nobody uses craftsmanship in a modern way like Imprimerie du Marais. And nobody is as precise or has such attention to detail.’

China has, of course, taken up a huge slice of the market for bulk printing, but specialists such as IdM offer something different. Maby-Przedborski says that IdM’s use of innovative sustainable materials has also been key to its growing appeal. She rummages through a box of paper and cardboard samples that includes paper made with glucose designed to attract bees, paper made from compostable wood fibres, paper impregnated with seeds that can be planted after reading, paper made from powdered stone. IdM is also screen-printing with natural inks and using upcylable foils. And these materials offer new stories to tell, they feel different, look different, smell different, add new physicality to Imprimerie du Marais’ remarkable printed matter.

INFORMATION

imprimeriedumarais.com

saint-lazare.co

Swedish furniture company Hem unveiled a new brand identity created in collaboration with London-based creative practice Made Thought. Founded by Petrus Palmer in 2014, Hem has quickly established a reputation as a brand for contemporary classics by the likes of Anderssen & Voll, Lars Beller Fjetland and Max Lamb among others. 

The new development in the brand’s short history comes as the peak of a year of growth for Hem, which recently expanded into the United States with the opening of a second studio location in New York’s SoHo. Its motto, ‘imaginative designs of obsessive quality’, is at the heart of the new branding, which visually represents the company's values.

‘We want Hem to be a platform for progressive thinking, inspiring the creative community through collaboration, innovation and experimentation, and we wanted our new visual identity to reflect this playfulness while also signalling the obsessive quality we are known for,’ says Palmer. ‘We've taken the time necessary to verbalise and internally align on a clear raison d'être. From that point, we've let a personality evolve.’

The brand’s newly-developed personality includes a distinctively enthusiastic colour palette featuring primary shades and silhouettes of the most iconic furniture designs, as well as new typeface, aptly named Hem Sans, created by leading Swedish typographer Göran Söderström of Letters from Sweden. The new typeface in particular is inspired by Geometric Sans Serif, and pays homage to the geometric language of design and architecture, infused with Hem’s optimistic creativity. 

As the company unveils their new brand aesthetic, they also continue to launch new pieces by international collaborators. The latest launch, a chair by Faye Toogood, features a metal frame supporting  an oversized duvet-like element, the first of a new series of pieces by the British designer that affirms Hem's quest to expand their product offering by working with avant-garde creatives and European artisans. 

‘The team at Hem have a very clear understanding of who they are and what they stand for, comments Garrett Duncan, Made Thought’s Strategy Director. ‘They also have an exciting vision for their future, pushing the boundaries of a conventional design or furniture brand: our job was to articulate a brand strategy that would help bring that collective vision to life.’ Made Thought’s design is a celebration of an ‘eclectic, tactile and creative world full of energy and play’, but also a reflection of the commitment to design, quality and expertise at the heart of the brand. 

INFORMATION

For more information, visit hem.com

Back in April 2020, NASA announced that it was bringing back ‘The Worm’, the fabled 1970s-era logo that graced some of the most significant space expeditions of the decade.

In those days, the agency’s serious grip on detail didn’t necessarily extend to branding. When designers Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn created the new logo in 1974 and its accompanying ‘NASA Graphics Standards Manual’, they found the engineering-driven organisation wasn’t especially bothered about how to present themselves.

Danne and Blackburn’s meticulous guide to how the logo, typography and graphic sensibility should be applied across everything from confidential memos to minibuses and, of course, spaceships, wasn’t enthusiastically followed. The design industry still loved it though and in 2015 the GSM was given a lavish reprint back in 2015 by Standards Manual, a publishing house set up by Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth from New York design agency Order. Reed and Smyth were long-time admirers of the golden age of graphic design standards manuals, back when these were the corporate equivalents of holy tablets, and NASA’s was one of the best.

Now as a follow-up to the reprint, Standards Manual are creating another showcase trawl through the NASA archive. ‘The Worm’ traces the application of the snaking logo that was the subject of the original 1974 manual, all the way up to its eventual banishment in the early 90s. A simple, timeless graphic, the Worm conjured up both far futurism and the all-embracing sophistication of a huge, benevolent corporate identity. And there’s a happy ending, as the logo made a triumphant return on the side of the SpaceX Crew Dragon launched at the end of May, as well as on the spacesuits of astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley. 

Space is more politicised and commercialised than ever before. The number of countries capable of launching their satellites are now competing with private companies looking to monetise the everyday ways in which we use satellite-based communications and location services. NASA is still committed to pushing ever further into the solar system, only this time it helps to have a distinct identity that stands out from the crowd. With over 300 pictures of the Worm in action, on the ground as well as in space, the monograph is a fine reminder of how to do corporate branding on a truly interstellar scale.

INFORMATION
The Worm is available to pre-order through Counter-Print, £52

www.counter-print.co.uk
order.design
standardsmanual.com

If you’re not familiar with the APFEL design agency by name, you’ll have likely come into contact with its output – on gallery walls, in publications and in the hallmarks of creative institutions.

Established in 2003 by Kirsty Carter and Emma Thomas, the London-based graphic designers' work can be seen work can be seen throughout the UK (and internationally) in the digital experience of Camardy Groarke's Windermere Jetty, in publication design for Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, and in the bespoke typefaces for V&A Dundee.

Type design has been ‘central to APFEL’s practice since its inception', explain the duo, and so the creation of a native foundry seems a natural progression. Launching with four retail typefaces – Certeau, Periferia, Remnants and Lining – alongside a bespoke type design service, the APFEL type foundry is now open for business.

As many will appreciate, launching a landmark project during a pandemic presents challenges. But for Carter and Thomas, it also presented opportunities. ‘Our launch date for the APFEL Type Foundry project didn't change significantly due to the lockdown, and we actually found that the situation galvanised our determination to make it happen – this is a project that means so much to us as a studio that we felt it was really important to stay on track, as we were so close to completion by the time that lockdown happened.'

They continue: ‘Having something so big and important for the studio to work towards alongside our client work during these months has been really valuable for the team as a whole, and it's wonderful to have something to celebrate right now.'

Though they aren't celebrating with a physical launch party just yet, APFEL has released a physical publication to mark the moment. A specemin for the foundry's new retail typefaces, Type As Readymade features a timely essay investigating the cultural concept of the everyday, and type design in context. As the value of clear and creative communication – both virtual and physical – is assigned gravitas in these strange times of isolation and distance, APFEL's communicative work is marked with renewed importance. 

INFORMATION

apracticeforeverydaylife.com

In 2017, designers John Morgan and Adrien Vasquez launched Abyme – a digital foundry, that creates visionary typographic stuff – from fonts to Ouija boards. Now, they’ve screenprinted a punchy, Seventies throwback sweatshirt with American artist Carolee Schneemann, and basically, we want it now.

Collaborations come naturally to Morgan, whose eponymous studio (established in 2000) revolves with cultural and creative figures (he has designed projects for the likes of Edmund de Waal, Helen Marten, the Barbican, Valentino). ‘Many Abyme ideas have developed through working together on other projects,’ he explains. ‘A work often begins life within another work.’ The same is true for the Schneemann sweatshirt.

The collaboration began when John Morgan Studio designed the second issue of The Magazine (of the Artist’s Institute, New York) which was dedicated to Schneemann. It features previously unpublished images from her studio, documenting half a century of morphological connections between her work and other visual material, including art, advertising, and popular culture.

‘While working on the publication, I saw a faded and tightly cropped photograph of Carolee with a hand holding her around her waist, from the mid 1970s wearing a sweatshirt with the slogan “ABC We Print Anything”,’ explains Morgan. ‘The typography, erratic colouring and care-free sentiment was irresistible, so we proposed – with the support of Carolee and The Artist’s Institute, New York – to remake the sweatshirt in a limited edition.’

The shirts are on sale from today (23 March), for a short period at Tenderbooks in Cecil Court, London, where they will ‘hang in the window as Carolee may have originally seen them.’ They’re also available at the Abyme website, which is a work of art in itself. The site is a masterclass in digital design, with a dancefloor of typographic wizardry to feed your browser, and imagination. Happy typing.

INFORMATION

‘ABC We Print Anything’, by Carolee Schneemann and Abyme, 2017, £280. For more information, visit the Abyme website

ADDRESS

Tenderbooks
6 Cecil Ct, London
WC2N 4HE

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Anyone familiar with the dynamic posters and typography conceived over decades by Philippe Apeloig might be surprised to discover that his designs for La Manufacture de Sèvres are absent of lettering. Instead, he’s used the slashes and punctuation marks that frequently feature in the composition of his typefaces to produce three rhythmic motifs that speak to the fluidity of his work. Unlike the prescribed right-side up format of a page or sign, the porcelain maker’s classic ‘Diane’ service plates encouraged Apeloig to consider how the circular shape would dictate the placement of his patterns.

In this way, ‘Tourbillon’ consists of gold slashes that diffuse outward and curve like a cresting wave; the pointillist array that glows from the Sèvres blue surface of ‘Galaxie’ demonstrates how grammatical dots can be arranged as cosmic scenery; while elongated hyphens that make up ‘Paille’ (straw) appear as a fine sprinkle of sprigs.

As the Paris-based graphic designer tells Wallpaper*, parameters such as kerning – or spacing – became integral to achieving a kinetic impression with each creation. ‘It’s like frozen motion,’ he says from the Galerie de Sèvres, where the plates have been mounted as an exhibition alongside limited-edition prints of the motifs on traditional washi paper from the Awagami Factory in Japan. ‘It’s interesting to limit yourself to one element and see all that you can do,’ he adds. 'This is typography as well; I just didn’t want to write something in words.’

The invitation was extended to Apeloig by Romane Sarfati, general director of the Cité de la céramique Sèvres et Limoges after she saw his drawings and watercolours in a show at the Galerie de Multiples in Paris last spring. Yves Mirande, the manufacturer’s director of culture and communication, suggests that she recognised ‘the balance’ inherent to Apeloig’s work, noting that he is the first graphic designer to contribute a series.

Apeloig, who devised a scarf for Hermès in 2014 by using the page layout of Roland Barthes’ Fragments d'un discours amoureux (A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments) to arrive at a genius geometrical pattern, is no stranger to abstracting and reimagining references both ordinary and esoteric. With the plates, a nod to Japanese artist Hokusai comes through – not just in the wave but also in the broader arrangement of the minimalist patterns. However, his talent for coaxing such beauty from prosaic punctuation is what makes these works unique.

Worth noting, too, are the precise production aspects: for ‘Tourbillon’, the result of photosensitive printing, the gold slashes continue around the downward edge of the plates; whereas ‘Galaxie’ and ‘Paille’ were engraved to enhance the depth of the gold detailing. High-gloss and slightly concave in all five sizes, the plates ultimately absorb Apeloig’s serene markings into their self-contained volumes.

This does not preclude them from being used, especially when the food is up to a similar standard. He notes how he intentionally avoided concentrating the pattern activity at the centre, for instance. ‘The plates play with emptiness – they’re not over-designed,’ he says. Even if the focus becomes a stack of asparagus stalks, his effort would not go unnoticed. ‘It’s a real motivation to reinvent yourself. I’m not bringing recipes,’ he says, gliding over the double entendre.

His reproduced signature – his truest typography of all – happens to be on the reverse side, adding to the Sèvres branding. But of course, it’s poor form to look.

INFORMATION

‘Typography: Apeloig à Sèvres’ is on view until 29 July. For more information, visit the Galerie de Sèvres website

ADDRESS

Galerie de Sèvres
4 Place André Malraux
75001 Paris

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Ben Adams Architects have designed a new office for Monotype in London’s Shoreditch using decorative details to reflect the creativity of the company. The global typeface business known for producing Gill Sans and Times New Roman – and distributing modern fonts such as Helvetica and Frutiger – needed a bigger office to fit its expanding workforce and to suit its collaborative style of working.

'We needed a flexible working environment,' says Monotype creative director James Fooks-Bale, 'A scalable space to allow for a growth in head-count and, more importantly, a space for different working environments: open-plan in places, but with defined quiet space and areas to spread out and collaborate.'

Designed to fit 32 workstations, the new 330 sq m space is versatile and adaptable. Bespoke plywood joinery divides the work space from the meeting spaces, which could in the future fit additional workstations. Designated meeting rooms with glass walls are named after the great type design fathers including Beatrice Warde, Stanley Morison, John Dreyfus, Walter Tracy and Tolbert Lanston and provide further space for collaborative working.

Looking to tell a story of a company who have fused creativity and art with technology, the architects collaborated with SEA Design to create an environment that would inspire employees, collaborators and clients.

A birch plywood tunnel laser etched with 1500 Monotype ‘M’ logos set in 750 different typefaces from the archive leads into the office where pendant lighting hangs over timber furniture from Wellworking and bespoke shelving has been designed to fit the classic Monotype archive boxes.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Ben Adams Architects website

‘Typography evokes a period. Even if you don’t know anything about typography, you sort of know what period it is from,’ says Sekford creative director Kuchar Swara on the power of type. In a special new collaboration, the most prominent typographical periods in history have been engraved into Italian brand Salvatori's stone wares in celebration of typography's evolution.

In an effort to honour the art form, Sekford set out to explore lettering through a technique that inspired its dials: stonemasonry. Titled 'Cutting Through Time', the exhibition went on show during London Design Festival last month, with 26 letters and 12 numbers that delved into a typographical timeline from Ancient Greek and Imperial Roman, to Bauhaus via handsome stones and eloquent carving methods.

Sekford approached British typeface designer and stone letter carver Richard Kindersley to rally the nation’s top cutters for the project. Together, they took on the task of working with Salvatori's impressive catalogue for the first time in this way, mastering the shapes in textured fine stones including Pietra d'Avola for Bauhaus, Silk Georgette for Scotch Roman and Avana for Gill and Johnston.

Aside from the challenge, Swara intended the exercise to be an educational one, distinguishing a visual narrative of the different styles. 'If you look at the very first one, the Ancient Greek letterings are so fine, simple and pure,’ he says. ‘There is almost a line coming back, a full circle when you look at the Bauhaus lettering. The postmodernist interpretations also have simple lines, no thick and thin stresses – it's all to do with the angles.’ To wit, the stones evoke the genesis of type, where decorative experimentation had a moment, but circled back to clean line work.

The timeline concludes on the contemporary carving, which is relatively open to interpretation. Realised in 7, 8 and 0, the designs exude surprisingly decorative shapes, yet still in a modern aesthetic, keeping in line with typography’s intimate tale of ‘going back to go forward.’

INFORMATION

For more information, vist the Sekford website

It’s been six years since the renowned structural engineer Cecil Balmond left Arup to set up his own eponymous London studio – and business is booming. Offering its clients architectural and consulting services as well as interior design, public and fine art pieces, Balmond Studio has been busy expanding into the Middle East and the United States with heavyweight projects including an ambitious 4.2 million sq m waterfront development in Colombo, Sri Lanka and a vast stainless steel public sculpture for the Santa Monica Boulevard and Century Park East in Los Angeles, USA.

‘It was about creating a strong, consistent identity within our ever-growing network of staff, partners and collaborators from across the globe. Different people. Different markets. Same message,’ says James Balmond, who has been propelling the brand forward since 2014 in his role as creative director. ‘Re-affirming our brand means that we fly the flag with clarity.  Everyone is on the same page knowing who we are, how we do things and what we expect from our employees and affiliates.’

The new identity, which has been designed in-house, seeks to reflect the studio’s architectural and artistic approach. It’s built around a punchy palette of black, yellow and white, and is stamped with a new rhombus-shaped logo. Coupled with Ammann tiling, the studio says that these new angular forms are designed ‘to evoke the geometric investigation that drives Balmond’s design approach’. Interwoven with these bold blocks of colour are the studio’s sketches, renders, fractals and patterns that become branded layers.

Softening the hard edges, swirling algorithm motifs grace the studio’s brochure covers – a reference to Balmond’s propensity for using generative algorithms to create structure, as well as its continuing research into non-linear organisational systems.

‘Our new branding is all about synergy,’ says Balmond. ‘So we have placed the Balmond Studio design methodology at the heart of the brand itself.’

Soon to be rolled out internationally across all of the studio’s platforms and offices, the rebrand is the first installment of a two-phase project – the second, Balmond promises, ‘will ‘push visual boundaries and production techniques to an entirely new level. It is a real game changer.’ Watch this space.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Balmond Studio's website

In line with the much anticipated Herzog & de Meuron extension (itself celebrated with the graphic representation by Peter Saville with Paul Hetherington and Morph,) Tate has given its logo, online branding and merchandising a rejuvenating lick of paint.

Tate Design Studio enlisted the help of London-based branding specialists North to reconfigure the museum's typographic expression. North decided early on that starting from scratch simply wasn't necessary. Jeremy Coysten, North partner explains, 'For us to propose getting rid of the identity system entirely would be irresponsible and a selfish act as designers. Instead, we built on the existing brand equity, refreshed and strengthened what was working well.'

Tate's highly recognisable logo was one of those branding aspects that 'just worked.' After looking into implementing an alternative, North decided to retain the logo's custom typeface, 'Tate Pro', but to control its usage more carefully.

Previously, Tate employed multiple versions of the logo, including both lower-case and capital letter options, along with versions with multiple font weights, aiming to visually promote the museum's 'Look again, Think again' philosophy. However, the new, streamlined system makes use of just one, consolidated logo, that succeeds across print, digital media and merchandising. This new concept also hopes to unify all four Tate locations (Tate Britain, Liverpool, St Ives, as well as Tate Modern).

We've already seen this new, colourful branding in full swing in Switch House's UXUS-designed Tate Modern shop. The vibrant, largely primary palette was chosen from the Tate Members commission by artist Martin Creed. These colourways will be refreshed every few years in collaboration with a new artist. So, just like the adaptable, modular retail experience, the updated visual identity has the capacity to evolve with the museum.

At such an exciting, busy time for the organisation, Tate's CMO Rob Baker took time to add, 'What North have created has allowed us to realise the potential of the current identity, ensuring it can exist seamlessly across all platforms in a confident and expressive way.' Confident is right. The new look is bravely simple, subtly achieved and quietly effective – it sees in the monumental Switch House opening with characteristic Tate class.

Jeremy Coysten, North partner explains, 'For us to propose getting rid of the identity system entirely would be irresponsible and a selfish act as designers. Instead, we built on the existing brand equity, refreshed and strengthened what was working well'

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Tate’s website

Photography: North

The New York Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) is turning an eye on itself this month with 'Eye for Design', an exhibition exploring the graphic identity of the museum as visualised by graphic artists and designers throughout the 1960s and 70s.

Pulling from their own archive as well as that of the American Craft Council, MAD will present a collection of works including exhibition catalogues and related ephemera.

Emil Antonucci, Linda Hinrichs, and John J Reiss are just a few of the designers behind some of these pieces, which defied contemporary graphic standards and bucked trends towards more corporate design, a hallmark of the museum itself.

'MAD embraced a very open definition of craft in the 1960s and 1970s, as the exhibition history highlighted by these catalogues demonstrates,' says Elissa Auther, Windgate research and collections curator at the museum. 'Alongside medium-specific exhibitions of ceramics or textiles, the Museum also produced an unusual series of shows featuring sound, immersive environments, audience-driven "scores" for exploring the city, and the art of baking, among many other creative practices and experiences.'

Rejecting sleek forms in favour of hand-rendered illustration, these graphic artists employed playful typography, experimental mark-making and bright colours, fusing influences like pop art and Henri Matisse’s cutouts with technologies such as screenprinting.

That particular craft will be celebrated through a series of live demonstrations running in parallel with the exhibition called 'The Print Shop', where Brooklyn-based screenprinting studio Kayrock will use MAD’s custom press to create prints inspired by the graphic art of Emil Antonucci.

INFORMATION

'Eye For Design' is on view until 18 September. For more information, visit the Museum of Arts and Design's website

ADDRESS

Museum of Arts and Design
Jerome and Simona Chazen Building
2 Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

The craft of letterpress typographic design and printmaking is alive and well in Alan Kitching’s south London Typography Workshop – even if part of his studio is being transported to Suffolk as part of a retrospective of his six-decade career.

Examples of the master craftsman’s hand-set type will be on show at The Lettering Arts Centre at Snape Maltings – near Aldeburgh – alongside sketchbooks, posters, prints, book designs, equipment and other artefacts, including a small letterpress.

Kitching’s long career started at 15, when he was taken on as an apprentice at a jobbing printers. There, he learnt to set type for catalogues, dance tickets and pantomime posters.

By the 1970s he was a practicing graphic designer, and became a partner at Derek Birdsall’s Omnific studio.

However, by the late 1980s, Kitching was ready to leave the studio environment to go back to his roots – and he took the printing press with him.

He spent many years teaching letterpress techniques at the Royal College of Art, introducing several generations of students to the technique and transforming it into a new art form.

Kitching’s style developed to be loud and clear, dramatic and even forceful where appropriate. His design signature can be seen at The Lettering Arts Centre in his wood and metal lettering designs for magazines, books, stamps, posters and billboards, including work for The Guardian, the National Theatre, British Library, Royal Mail, Random House and Penguin Books.

Best of all, some lucky visitors can book in for a day’s workshop with Kitching in typesetting, imposition and printing, from 15 June.

The exhibition coincides with a new illustrated biography, Alan Kitching: A Life in Letterpress, published by Laurence King.

INFORMATION

'Alan Kitching – A Life in Letterpress' runs from 3 June – 20 August. For more information, visit the Lettering Arts Centre website

ADDRESS 

The Lettering Arts Centre
Snape Maltings
Snape
Suffolk, IP17 1SP

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

The reassuringly familiar typeface used across London’s transport network turns 100 this year, making it one of the world’s longest lasting examples of corporate branding. Commissioned by the Underground Group’s commercial manager, Frank Pick, in 1913, designed by calligrapher Edward Johnston and introduced in 1916, the sans serif design brought clarity and uniformity to London’s complex network of stations, which had previously each used a jumble of signage and typography.

To mark its centenary, Transport for London (TfL) has teamed up with 11 UK graphic and design agencies, who have each created a poster dedicated to the typeface. Among them, legendary typographer, designer and letterpress master Alan Kitching has used the tube line colours from Harry Beck’s 1933 Underground map to create a multicoloured drop shadow behind the Johnston font; award-winning agency Magpie has conjured a playful ode to Johnston’s legacy with a simple and direct message – ‘Politley telling Londoners where to get off since 1916’; while Thomas.Matthews has layered the underground’s distinctive seat fabric pattern (also designed by Johnston) into a rich composition that ‘aims to communicate the hustle bustle of London and the constant presence of Johnston in our everyday journeys’.

Other participants include Build, Monotype, Pentagram, Sawdust, SEA, Studio Frith, Studio Parallel and The Beautiful Meme, whose posters will be on show and for sale at TfL’s Johnston Pop-Up Shop in the 'Additions' exhibition at Clerkenwell Design Week from 24–26 May and at an exhibition entitled 'The Language of London', to be held at Hoxton's KK Outlet concurrent with Clerkenwell Design Week, from 16–28 May.

'The Language of London' is not a stand-alone event; it is in fact part of a much wider 18-month programme of events, exhibitions and competitions titled 'Transported by Design', which was specifically set up to showcase the link between transport and good design and how it has kept London working and growing into the 21st century.

INFORMATION

The ’Johnston 100’ posters will also be on show on the Underground during June. The poster designs will be available to buy online from 16 May via TfL’s website

Before computers, graphic design relied heavily on printers to create visually striking images. 'Typeface to Interface', an exhibition on view at the newly reopened San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) until October, traces the evolution of graphic design and typography from 1950 to the present day, through works from the museum’s collection.

The exhibition begins with a series of colourful posters from the 1950s and 60s for the Olivetti Company, which produced typewriters. From there it moves on to the movement that became known as 'Swiss Style', depicting posters by Karl Gerstner, Pierre Mendell and Armin Hofmann – practitioners that made use of negative space and utilised bold, balanced typefaces like Helvetica and other sans-serifs to get their point across. Another area showcases the lurid, psychedelic Bay Area concert posters for venues like the Fillmore, that were commonplace in the city during the 1960s and 70s, capturing a moment in design and in the region.

What follows ranges from Massimo Vignelli’s iconic 1972 New York subway guide and Paul Rand’s 1981 Eye-Bee-M poster for IBM, to more chaotic designs by the likes of Stefan Sagmeister, as well as Michael Bierut’s posters for the Yale School of Architecture. The equipment used to create these posters, like the 1984 prototype for the Apple Macintosh touch-screen tablet and the 1984 Apple Macintosh personal computer, is also on display.

'Typeface to Interface' provides an in-depth overview of how graphic design has evolved both in the Bay Area and globally for the past half-century, via the days of print and through to the present, the process of which is traced by an automated wall-drawing robot, Viktor (designed by Jürg Lehni) in a series called A Taxonomy of Communication, created by Lehni and and Jenny Hirons.

‘There are moments of oscillation between different schools of graphic design and different practitioners, where we go from structured formalism, to much more chaotic experimentation and back, and these things operate in waves,’ says SFMoMA associate curator of architecture and design Joseph Becker. ‘People pushing against the graphic design that’s come before them, finding their own voice and pushing against that.’

INFORMATION

’Typeface to Interface’ is on view until 23 October. For more details, please visit the SFMoMA’s website

ADDRESS

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 3rd Street
San Francisco, California

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

It seems ironic, if not mildly amusing, that one of the most urban of signifiers of all – the famous London Underground typeface – was dreamt up in a small Sussex village. And yet it was. That same lettering is celebrating its 100 anniversary this year, so in tribute, the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft is putting on a show. 

'Underground: 100 years of Edward Johnston’s Lettering from London' tells the tale of calligrapher Edward Johnson and traces the evolution of his sans serif alphabet, now known as Johnston Sans, through a series of working drawings and early prototypes. 

Commissioned in 1913 by Frank Pick, the commercial manager for the London Underground Railway, the typeface aimed for nothing more than consistency and clarity. ‘The bold simplicity of the authentic lettering of the finest periods and yet belonging unmistakably to the 20th century,’ as Pick put it. 

At the time, disparate companies and identities made up the tube network and Edwardian London was plastered with competing commercial slogans in increasingly elaborate scripts. Ever the purist, Johnston went back to his calligraphy roots and simplified the Roman letters down to their very essence, distilling along the way a visual identity that endures today. (The font was only updated once, and ever so slightly, in 1979.)

The exhibition looks at Johnston's work and his role in the Arts and Crafts movements which was, at the time, in full swing in the Sussex countryside. The relationship between Johnston and Eric Gill, a friend and former student of Johnston’s, comes under scrutiny too. Gill Sans – another popular sans serif font – was inspired by Johnston Sans, after all. But it is the enduring character of Johnston Sans that steals the spotlight. 

INFORMATION

'Underground: 100 years of Edward Johnston’s Lettering for London' is on view until 11 September. For more information, visit the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft's website 

ADDRESS

Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft
Lodge Hill Lane
Ditchling
Hassocks
BN6 8SP

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Michael Harvey was a designer’s designer, revered by other graphic artists and letter carvers, but little known outside those hallowed circles.

This exhibition at Suffolk’s Lettering Arts Centre hopes to change that, as it brings together Harvey’s collected works; from myriad book jackets and digital fonts to his letters carved into stone.

Harvey, who died in 2013, started out as a stone carver in the 1950s, working under Eric Gill’s first apprentice, Joseph Cribb. Although he was highly influenced by Gill, Harvey was also inspired by wood engraver, engraver, designer, typographer and painter Reynolds Stone, and was his assistant in the 1950s. German font designers Georg Trump and Hermann Zapf were other important influences.

From the 1960s to the 1990s his career was dominated by book jacket design – he produced around 1,500 elegant typographic offerings for publishing houses including Hodder & Stoughton, MacMillan, Chatto & Windus, Hamish Hamilton, Methuen and The Bodley Head.

In later years, Harvey designed a number of well-regarded digital fonts for the likes of software company Adobe, but the notebooks and drawings featured in the show at the artistic rural hub of Snape Maltings demonstrate that drawing was always at the front of his mind.

'Drawing frees the hand from the demands of the broad-edged pen, the sign-writer’s brush,' Harvey wrote in his 2012 memoir, Adventures with Letters. 'The pencil is neutral. Eye and mind are in control.'

INFORMATION

’Michael Harvey: In His Own Words’ is on view from 25 March – 28 May. For more information, visit the Lettering Arts Centre’s website

Photography: Frank Barrett

ADDRESS

The Lettering Arts Centre
Snape Maltings
Near Aldeburgh
Suffolk, IP17 1SP

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

The legacy of British designer and sculptor Eric Gill is more than marked by the shocking posthumous revelations in his private life. Despite this – and the subsequent calls to have his work removed from public view – the fact remains that Gill was an artist of great talent, whose work in typeface creation was hugely influential to the discipline, ubiquitously employed across publishing and design industries to this day.

Given this, Monotype is staging a week-long celebration of Gill and his most legendary works. Gill started working on Gill Sans in 1927 and produced Joanna a few years later, in 1930; both fonts have been since adopted by Monotype, which has continuously been adapting them to contemporary typographic needs, from different alphabets to new currency symbols, as well as for use on digital platforms.

With a background as a sculptor, carver and calligrapher, Gill had a particular sensibility for light and shadow, apparent in his typographic work. He and Monotype developed a long relationship, and the American company acquired several of his fonts, which he often created and updated in collaboration with the commercial team there. ‘Gill Sans is evidence of the company’s strong relationship with Eric Gill,’ says Dan Rhatigan, a consultant on the Gill Series project and former type director at Monotype.

On display in the exhibition – curated by James Fooks-Bale, Monotype's creative director – is an array of materials that inspired the development of Gill’s typefaces, as well as documents that explore his fonts' histories and eventful development.

The show also serves as the announcement of a series of new fonts that continue Gill’s legacy. Over 75 new fonts have been introduced in the Monotype library, the most comprehensive update to the Gill Sans and Joanna families yet. Gill Sans Nova, Joanna Nova and Joanna Sans Nova will be available immediately from Monotype. Four designers collaborated over the course of over two years to develop contemporary styles that are true to the typographer’s original intentions. Adjustments of the fonts include an increased palette of weights, making them better suited to digital use, and a Sans version of Joanna, which didn’t exist before. ‘The [Joanna] font has such a vast library and heritage,’ says Terrance Weinzierl, one of the designers tasked with the new project. ‘What we asked ourselves was: how do we contribute to that in a meaningful way?’ The resulting design balances simplicity, beauty and usability, but also maintains Gill’s initial aesthetic character.

‘Gill’s mastery of light and dark spaces is what made his typefaces so good,’ said Steve Matteson, the company’s creative type director. ‘Our work with the [Eric Gill] series spotlights the role Monotype continuously plays with respect [to] the past, present and future of type, where we have the unique ability to revive legacy designs with new weights, characters and languages.'

The exhibition, and the subsequent commercial release of the three typefaces, is an important step in a conversation that brings type history to life. 

INFORMATION

’Monotype: the Eric Gill Series’ is on view until 10 November. For more information, visit Monotype’s website

ADDRESS

The Old Truman Brewery
Brick Lane
London, E1 6QL

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

3779287075001

London's New North Press is on a mission to bring letterpress into the 21st century. To combine the oldest form of print technology with the very latest innovations, the Hoxton-based studio turned to Scott Williams and Henrik Kubel of A2-Type to design a letterpress font that could be 3D printed. 'It was really important to us that the design was something that challenged the notion of what letterpress could be and tested what 3D printing was capable of,' says Richard Ardagh, a New North Press partner. 'When Scott and Henrik presented their design of the letter forms being a wireframe, I knew we were in new territory that felt exciting.' The A23D font was fabricated by specialist model makers Chalk Studios and is now a working part of New North Press' library of type. The project has been documented by Adrian Harrison, whose film – a shortened version of which is previewed here - will premiere at the Victoria & Albert Museum on 13 September as part of London Design Festival's Graphic Weekend.

Victoria & Albert Museum, Seminar Room 1, Learning Centre Screening times: 12:00, 14:30, 16:00 & 17:00

'Century: 100 Years of Type in Design' at the AIGA National Design Center in New York City celebrates typography as a significant component of our everyday world over the past ten decades. The immersive exhibit, designed by Pentagram partner Abbott Miller and curated by Monotype, features a wealth of historical examples - production drawings, proofs, books, packaging and other ephemera - pulled from the deep archives of the Herb Lubalin Study Center, Monotype, the AIGA, Pentagram, and many more premier design organisations.

Former Wallpaper* Handmade cover artist Alan Kitching created five limited-edition letterpress printed posters prominently displayed near the show's entrance, paying tribute to five graphic design legends born in 1914: Tom Eckersley, Abram Games, F H K Henrion, Josef Müller-Brockmann and Paul Rand.

A wide band of Miller's signature tomato red runs horizontally around the space, contrasting with bold black geometric patterning that marches down one white wall, across the floor and up the opposite wall. Upon closer inspection, that pattern is made up of typographic periods drawn from 1,058 individual typefaces from 630 type families. The varying shapes of these simplest characters become a sort of Morse code mirroring the vast diversity of material on view.

Video animations and recorded interviews with Daniel Rhatigan, type director of Monotype, complete the well-curated display. Rhatigan says, 'Last year when we did Pencil to Pixel, we were looking at typefaces in isolation. This time, because it was AIGA who invited us, we wanted to examine a cross section of graphic design over the past hundred years to see how typography has been used across that century.'

The exhibit decisively demonstrates that design history is not a linear progress but one made up of overlapping layers of inspiration and influence as typefaces evolve and change, and as designers find new and inventive ways to use them.

ADDRESS

AIGA National Design Center
164 5th Avenue
New York NY 10010

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

The veritable British typography firm Monotype has dreamt up the ultimate showcase for the font fiends in all of us. 'Pencil to Pixel' is a comprehensive exhibition offering typography fanatics a chance to get up close to rare implements, artworks and artifacts relating to type history, charting the development of typography up to its present technology-infused state.

'In an era where most people interact with type as a digital experience, Monotype's collection of artifacts relating to type history - examples of precision drafting, metal and film masters, photographs and tools - provide a chance for visitors to explore the very physical history of the typefaces they already know,' explained Dan Rhatigan, Monotype's UK Type Director.

The exhibition also offers an opportunity to see the hand of the author. Says Monotype's James Fooks-Bale: 'A lot of designers are familiar with the "tick-down" menu in their applications but aren't familiar with the fact that it originally came from someone's hand.'

With a history dating back to 1897, Monotype is certainly in a position to hold typographic court. The exhibition, which opens in New York this week, is actually a reprise of a first installment that was staged in London last November. The American leg will feature examples with special relevance to the United States, such as a copy of the 1931 Linotype magazine 'Typographic Sanity,' published in Brooklyn, as well as original Monotype Centaur typeface drawings by American typographer and type designer Bruce Rogers.

Other artifacts on show, which have previously never been seen, include phototype masters for Haas Unica and Neue Helvetica fonts, the original drawings Eric Gill made for Joana and an impeccably maintained manuscript showing the exact Firmin Didot typefaces that inspired Adrian Frutiger's Linotype Didot.

ADDRESS

Tribeca Skyline Studio
205 Hudson Street
Penthouse
New York

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Graphic designer Blam - of Print-process and Blanka - recently tapped 100 design luminaries to render Bowie’s name in a typeface of their choosing or creation. The results have been gathered onto a limited release print in anticipation of the impending 'David Bowie is' retrospective at the V&A, opening on 23 March.

‘The changing faces of Bowie’ poster features contributions from the likes of Pentagram, Trevor Jackson, Anthony Burrill, Stockholm Design Lab and Wallpaper*, the fonts as stylistically eclectic as the musician they pay tribute to. The prints will be available to buy from the museum’s shop, priced at £45. Each artwork comes with a certificate and an insert with insights from the contributors on their submissions.

Avid Wallpaper* readers will know that British designer and illustrator Anthony Burrill is no stranger to our pages. In fact, he has twice shouted his witty typographic messages from our cover - see our Work Special (W*111) and our forthcoming Handmade issue. So we couldn't resist a look at his latest project at London's Kemistry Gallery.

Titled ‘How to say the most with least’, the exhibition features the fruits of a six-day workshop led by Burrill in São Paulo earlier this year. ‘It was inspiring to travel half way across the world to meet people who shared my values,’ he says.

Organised by Mesa&Cadeira, a local company specialising in creative workshops, the course was attended by 12 designers, writers and art directors who were given the simple brief of producing a collection of phrases that best expressed their individual life philosophies.

The result is a text installation featuring work that blends Burrill’s up-beat influence with a touch of Brazilian street typography vernacular. With slogans like 'The more I look back, the more I see miracles' and 'Belong to where you are', the works are a powerful bunch.

ADDRESS

Kemistry Gallery
43 Charlotte Road,
London EC2A 3PD

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Architecture has often provided typographical inspiration. For our special Brazil issue, Wallpaper* turned to the admirably internationally staffed but London-based studio of Julia to create a bespoke typeface for the magazine.

Julia was founded by Italian Valerio Di Lucente, Frenchman Erwan Lhuissier and the Brazilian Hugo Timm, all of whom met at the Royal College of Art in London. Blending their professional experience, their studio has worked in print and on the web. With a handful of other elegant typefaces already on their desktops – including Herman, Modo, and Riso – Di Lucente, Lhuissier and Timm turned their eyes to Brazil, working in close collaboration with Wallpaper's design team.

The result is 'Copan', a geometrically precise but fittingly fluid title font in two sizes. 'Initially we only knew what we didn't want it to look like - there are good cliches and bad cliches about Brazil,' says Timm. 'one of the prominent characteristics of Brazilian typography – as opposed to work from the UK or France – is that it's quite informal and vernacular.'

Instead, the Julia studio immersed itself in the country's culture, collecting imagery from every source. While not directly inspired by the fluid concrete facades of Oscar Niemeyer's classic Edificio Copan apartments, the resulting font shares certain characteristics – 'a happy coincidence,' according to Timm.

The repeated lines (four strokes for the large size, three for the small), the architectural rigour of the curves and the moiré pattern the font creates all give a nod to Niemeyer's 1966 creation. 'I don't want to suggest that the font could have been used for the building's original identity,' Timm admits, 'we originally wanted to represent Brazil but feel that we have evoked its spirit instead.'