Cannon is Lee Lai’s follow up to the Lamda Award winning graphic novel Stone Fruit. The title and author’s name on both the cover and the spine are typeset in Velzyland. On the cover, the wavy letterforms of Velzyland pair nicely with the rhythmic bird feather motif. And the angled baseline on the cover works especially well with Velzyland’s extreme slant of 25 degrees. On the spine, “CANNON” is stacked vertically alternating from red to black, further echoing Velzyland’s wavy rhythmic effect, and it’s sandwiched between the author’s name and the publisher name, D+Q, shorthand for Drawn & Quarterly. All of the type appears to be hand-rendered, as evidenced by the organic edge details which are not in the typeface, though the spacing is consistent with the typeface.

The poster for the tour with Tom Gauld and Mimi Pond uses Noto Sans.

Source: www.twd.sk License: All Rights Reserved.

twd is a hardware retailer based in Slovakia, supplying quality tools, furniture, windows and doors to both large and small craftsmen. twd uses Pennypacker Black for their largest headlines, Extra Bold for subheads, and Regular and Bold for body copy. Their main navigation makes good use of the narrower Pennypacker Condensed styles in Bold, as well and their buttons and in-page navigation to jump to lower sections.

Source: www.twd.sk License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.twd.sk License: All Rights Reserved.

Pennypacker is, at its core, a super utilitarian industrial grotesk, making it a perfect choice for twd, by creative studio Vizua. Pennypacker’s system of weights and widths was designed to have enough options, with enough contrast, so that this one typeface family could be used for an entire identity design. It’s wonderful to see a design system like twd’s which makes use of the range of weights and widths in Pennypacker. twd’s typography feels confident and strong through its use of Pennypacker’s Black weights in both large headlines and small subheads, contrasting them with the much lighter Regular weight body copy. A key factor that makes this work is the ample use of white space, leaving room for the Black weight text to breathe.

Photo taken by CJ Dunn at Letterform Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Page from Bruynzeel’s 1930s catalog designed by Piet Zwart, using Annonce and Kaart-Antieke

This design overall brings to mind one of my favorite references for Pennypacker, the carpentry factory catalog for Bruynzeel’s fabrieken Zaandam designed by Piet Zwart in the 1930s, shown to me by Stephen Coles at the Letterform Archive. Despite the catalog’s super utilitarian and potentially boring subject matter, selling items like doors and flooring, Zwart’s design is dynamic, strong, clearly understandable, and beautiful. The boldest text in the catalog uses Annonce, which comes from the same lineage as Pennypacker, contrasted with a much lighter body typeface, Kaart-Antieke. Again, a large part of what makes the super heavy type work at small sizes is the strategic use of ample whitespace. See Zwart’s design in this post about the Bruynzeel catalog. I liked this catalog so much that we were considering directly referencing it for the marketing materials of Pennypacker. But now I’m even happier that, instead of us making a fake use of Pennypacker selling industrial material, twd is using the range of Pennypacker styles to sell actual industrial materials and tools, in a strong design system that uses many things I love about Zwart’s design.

Source: www.twd.sk License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.twd.sk License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.twd.sk License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.twd.sk License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.twd.sk License: All Rights Reserved.

Dutch financial institution SNS Bank makes extensive use of Dunbar Tall for the display typography in their 2022 rebrand, designed by advertising agency Alfred International. The brand design is full of color and large typography, which feels inviting and welcoming, perfectly aligning with their human first “it’s all about you” messaging.

Their type palette uses the Extra Bold weight of Dunbar Tall consistently for their largest headlines, with the Bold weight used for smaller headlines. For the smaller body copy they use Mulish. The rebrand was launched with a series of commercials, where the Extra Bold headlines are animated using motion graphics. The heavy type sits on top of solid color blocks which go in front of and behind people in these scenes, giving the words a physical presence in the story, rather than just superimposing type on top of the videos at the end.

I love to see this kind of bold typography used to great effect for the brand identity of a bank. It is effective in making SNS stand out from the typically reserved typography of banks and financial institutions in general. SNS Bank’s typographic voice is personable and forward-looking, rather than boring and stuck in the past, which is a welcome change here.

This use of Stilla caught my eye right away when I came across this record on Discogs. I first heard the track “Keep it Up” on the Strange Games and Things mix by DJ Spinna (credited there as Milton Wright Jr.), so I knew the song well, but I had never seen the original album until now. I noticed that the album designer made good use of both versions of the T in Stilla. The one used in “MILTON” dropped its ball terminal, nicely avoiding a collision with the ball terminal of the L, and the T used in “WRIGHT” is the default shape – with ball terminal – fitting nicely after the H.

The lively and ultra-bold artist name set in Stilla contrasts nicely with the more sober album title “FRIENDS and BUDDIES”, set in “Sixties Bookman”, a.k.a. Bookman Swash (used here without any swashes). On the reverse side, the track listing and credits also work well. They are set in Futura, using the Bold weight to separate the middle credits, and with generous leading for the smaller text, which is really helpful with a low x-height typeface like Futura. The rainbow motif on the label, using earth-toned shades of red, orange, yellow, and brown, are exactly what you’d expect to see in 1975 and it sets the mood perfectly. The label typography uses regular-wide and condensed styles from Univers. After admiring the song “Keep it Up” for so many years I’m happy to see that the original album typography is equally admirable.

[More info on Discogs]

Louvette in use for Komorní Filharmonie Pardubice, the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice. The accompanying sans serif is Silka.

Queensboro FC is a new professional soccer team based in Queens, NY. The team made their debut in the USL Championship League in 2023, along with a Women’s in the USL W League in 2022 and QBFC II Academy Team in the USL-A League in 2021. David Decepida, of Carbone Smolan Agency, lead the team designing the QBFC identity, and commissioned me to design the QBFC custom typeface.

One reference for the proportions and weight of the typeface was a sign for the Queens Plaza subway station from the IRT line in the 1930s. The strong, industrial, “working class” letters made sense as a reference for a new soccer team in Queens. Blackletter signage and architectural façade lettering in Queens were also a references we looked at, with a focus on the broad-edged pen angularity of these forms. The broad-edged pen style letters became a through-line as a reference to the many languages and cultures represented in Queens, from Latin American Blackletter to Korean Hangul, Hebrew to Hindi. This all came together in a sketch I made with a broad-edged pen, while referencing the sturdy, narrow proportioned letters of the Queens Plaza sign.

Sharp terminals, along with the bold condensed type, became the defining feature of the logomark, logotype and the custom typeface. An alternate number set with cut-ins was also added to the typeface for usage on the jerseys to add more character and personality at larger sizes.

Originally known as QBFC Plaza, the custom typeface is currently being expanded into a larger retail family named Counterpress, to be released with CJ Type.

Dinnerly is an affordable, healthy subscription-based meal kit service by Berlin-based Marley Spoon. The site uses Dunbar Tall for headlines along with Galano Grotesque for supporting text and a lively color palette to create a friendly and inviting overall design.

An die Musik NYC is a concert series bringing the people of New York City high-quality classical music at affordable prices. It presents internationally renowned performers alongside rising talents from the NYC community.

The 2018–2019 season makes use of Louvette’s optical sizes and weights, with the Italic Banner and Display used for the composer names and dates, down to the Text styles used for performer names, bios, and supplemental information. The concert program use of Louvette Deck for composer name, with song titles and movements set in Louvette Text. The opening concert poster, which features works by Huang Ruo, makes use of Source Han Serif for Huang’s name in Chinese, scaled to a smaller point size to harmonize with Louvette.

Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs is a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist and composer who creates immersive public rituals with sculpture, video, costume, and collective performance. The core theme of her practice is the conviction that the creation of new mythologies can lead to the deconstruction/devastation of real-life hierarchical structures. These performances often take place at museums and performance spaces including The Broad Contemporary Art Museum, House of the Book, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater), and The Triforium in Downtown Los Angeles.

The programs for Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs’ performances were designed to serve as a poster on one side, announcing the performance, and a program on the reverse side, listing information such as the names and order of pieces performed, words and lyrics from selected pieces, and credits for performers, costumes, etc. The typesetting of the lyrics follows their performance, for example call and response pieces such as Who Do U Want 2 Love use different widths of text to indicate individual vs chorus lyrics. There in the Inbetween and A Journey That Wasn’t have songs which are sung in a loop so the words are typeset in an oval shape with no beginning and no end. And A Journey That Wasn’t additionally includes backwards text for lyrics which are sung backwards. The programs also include photography from the artist which relate to the specific, such as costumes, masks and sculptures used in the performances.

This is a re-issue of the 1976 psychedelic-pop-inspired album by Turkish singer-songwriter Erol Büyükburç (1936–2015).

Lombardic caps paired with a reverse contrast slab? Yes. And if that’s not enough, there are some soundwave-like lines emanating from the p in the word hop.

This album was originally released in 1976 by Diskotür. It was re-released with largely unchanged artwork by Pharaway Sounds in Spain in 2017.

Hiday is a magazine about branding and digitization by Bloom Identity, based in Bern, Switzerland. I love the way they use Dunbar Tall, Low and Text all together in an editorial context. They make use of the full range of weights available in Dunbar, using a range of sizes from large pull-quotes and headline to smaller credits and site navigation. Note that, while all text is German, the hashtags and menu are in English.

Identity design for Jonah Raydio, the music and comedy podcast of Jonah Ray and friends. Jonah wanted to use this illustation by artist Matt Cunningham, and came to me to work on the typography. I created a simple system to support this comedic artwork in a variety of layout configurations.

Remember when you used to hang out with your friends, get drunk and listen to new music? Yeah, then you went and became an adult with responsibilities and don't have the time to do that anymore. Well, Jonah Ray (MST3k, Nerdist, The Meltdown) along with his buds Cash Hartzell & Neil Mahoney are here to do all those things with their showbiz friends SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO!

An die Musik NYC is a concert series bringing the people of New York City high-quality classical music at affordable prices. It presents internationally renowned performers alongside rising talents from the NYC community.

We developed a flexible identity system, using big bold typography in a playful way to showcase the composers around which the programs are built. The circular and diagonal forms move like melody and harmony, working as a counterpoint to the rhythmic gridded elements.

The logo mark is built of geometric shapes which get deconstructed and rearranged for each poster and application. For the printed materials such as posters, flyers, and programs, we use Pennypacker for big bold headlines, in both wide and compressed widths. The website uses Dunbar Low for its largest text. The very low x-height of this typeface gives it lots of vertical movement and an expressive, lyrical quality. For body copy and navigation Dunbar Text provides solid and complementary accompaniment.

Hannah Dewhirst is an architect, artist, & educator based in New York and Detroit. She holds degrees from University of Michigan and Cranbrook Academy of Art. After receiving her Bachelor’s Degree, Hannah spent time in Abu Dhabi, on the border between the United States and Mexico, and in Midtown Manhattan. Fascinated by the disturbing, egotistical, and political nature of the architectural profession, she has spent the last two years searching for a new approach to autonomous practice.

This book was designed at Cranbook Academy of Art by Anthony Nguyen. It uses Dunbar for section headlines and pullquotes. GT America is used for informational text like table of contents, page numbers, and credits. Wilke is used for body text and additional headlines.

Nice use of Kolo for a fancy cosmetics store in the Omotesando neighborhood of Tokyo.

Geared campaign by Popular Mechanics and American Hiking Society.

Trade is a photo magazine based in New York City. The first issue was released in October 2016 and printed on large format newsprint. It features portraits of artists, musicians, actors, and other creative individuals living and working in New York City.

Window and wall graphic by Na Kim for Wellknown Unknown at Kukje Gallery Archive Room.

This year’s Fall Fashion issue of New York magazine makes great use of Atlantic Light, a preliminary cut that is part of an upcoming typeface family designed by Jan Horčik, to be released with Heavyweight.

Design credits: Thomas Alberty (Design Director), Randy Minor, Miranda Dempster, Christopher Cristiano, Aaron Garza