When Marinski Heartmades ceramics pivoted from playful dreaminess towards elegant-slash-feminine dreaminess, it was time for a remake. And the typefaces chosen for such direction were Estilo Pro and Synerga.

Each piece of Marinski ceramics is a small, unique ode to nature. Just like each letter is.

Secondary fonts used on this poster include Girga for the tagline “A story of two ladies going south”, Univers Bold Italic for the names, and Bee for the credits. The wide sans at the very top and bottom was identified as Sequel Sans, see comments.

Drive-Away Dolls is a 2024 crime comedy directed by Ethan Coen and co-written with his wife Tricia Cooke, who was also the film’s editor and uncredited co-director. It stars Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as two lesbian friends on a road trip that takes a wrong turn. Set in 1999, the film has a gritty aesthetic that fits its classic caper plot.

The film posters and trailers use Freehouse by Rian Hughes for the title. The distressed version of Freehouse, designed “to evoke rough print on a wet beermat”, was used on an earlier poster release.

“Official trailer 2” is added in all-caps Brandon Grotesque Light.

This poster designed by AV Print additionally uses Trade Gothic Next Compressed.

In 2020–2022, GQ Mexico embraced typographic restraint, allowing simplicity to take center stage. For each cover, dynamic photos were paired with mostly sans serif fonts, occasionally punctuated by a hand-lettered or outlined word or phrase.

For the coverlines, the magazine used Sequel Sans Extended by OGJ Type. The designers took full advantage of its wide stance, flat terminals, and range of styles. Each use feels cinematic, often stretching across images or enjoying interplay with a hand-lettered word or phrase.

Supporting this was Suisse Int’l from Swiss Typefaces. Its versatile, clear construction lends structure and balance to the authoritative presence of Sequel Sans Extended. Together, the two typefaces created a harmonious hierarchy: one expansive and deliberate, the other understated and precise.

Some of the covers pair Sequel Sans with Broadway Lights by Red Ink. Secondary fonts used include Breve News by DSType.

Ana Cecilia Aviléz served as Head of Design, with creative direction from Priscila Casañas.

We just love anniversaries. When in that celebratory mode, clients tend to be open to something a bit more special. For utility company Čistoća’s 70th anniversary we created an anniversary logo and a company monograph. Due to the volume and diversity of content for the book, we developed a set of graphic elements which we used to create infographics, to break large amounts of text and to emphasise specific content.

There are a lot of scanned old documents included in the book, and since they're written on the typewriter, we opted for Jornada Mono to accompany such feel in the quotes and infographics. For the body text we chose a more neutral Tabac Sans, and for the big titles and emphasized numbers – a very bold Orientation.

Christoffer Leka, Kaisa Leka. License: All Rights Reserved.

The good news? Well, at least navigating is easy. For a good amount of time the only thing on the horizon has been a tiny dot that has to be the lighthouse we’re headed towards. Other than that it’s just water. Lots of water. All around us.

The bad news, then? Well, Kaisa isn’t feeling well. Her seasickness has increased in direct proportion to the intensity of the swells. Right now her color is closer to that of the sea underneath us than would be desirable. Taking to land at the last outpost Yttre Borgen proved impossible as the waves along the rocky shoreline would permit nothing of the sort. Now it’s been more than an hour since we made the decision to continue, and there’s no relief in sight for Kaisa before we reach small lighthouse on Märket.

According to our calculations it would take us two hours to paddle to that desolate island from the last outpost. Right now those calculations start to feel overly optimistic. The fact that Kaisa isn’t feeling well is clearly slowing us down.

Under normal circumstances this wouldn’t worry me, but right now our window of calm winds is rapidly closing. Other than my concerns about the wind the weather is close to perfect. The sky is clear and and now at nine PM the evening air is warm without being oppressively so. I try to discern if the wind is growing in its strength, but my deliberations are broken by some strange noises behind me. As I turn around I see Kaisa throwing up on the front deck of her kayak. This is not good.

However, every tragedy tends to have a silver lining, and after Kaisa has paid her dues to Neptune she begins to feel remarkably better. Our speed increases to its normal rate and soon we are able to perceive more and more details in the architecture ahead of us. We’re getting closer.

Christoffer Leka, Kaisa Leka. License: All Rights Reserved.

Christoffer Leka, Kaisa Leka. License: All Rights Reserved.

An hour later we’re standing on firm ground. It’s not a big island by any stretch of the imagination, measuring some 300 meters at its longest and a 100 meters at its widest. The island is also remarkably flat, with the highest point excluding buildings and other man-made constructions no more than three meters above sea level. But in this particular case we’re not interested in any of these geographic features, we’re just extraordinarily exhilarated to have something solid underneath our feet.

The next day we hoist our small flag on the side of the lighthouse. Seeing it sway in the gale wind makes us feel proud – we have achieved something few have. (Incidentally, the same day a taxi boat carrying tourists arrives at the shore of the island, but due to the heavy sea has to turn around after several tries. It fails in doing what two fledgling paddlers had been able to pull off. Only the knowledge that we still have to make it back to the mainland once the storm had set kept our smugness at bay.)

Christoffer Leka, Kaisa Leka. License: All Rights Reserved.

Christoffer Leka, Kaisa Leka. License: All Rights Reserved.

But back to the flag. We felt that out here on this strange little island was exactly where our flag belonged.

The text on the flag reads “Till Ytterskären”, which roughly translated would read “To the Outermost Islands”. I say roughly translated intentionally, as in Swedish there are more than fifteen different words describing various types of islands, whereas in English, at least to the best of my knowledge, has far fewer. Sorry, English, you lose this one!

But most of you are here for type-related content, so I’ll now share with you the details regarding the design of the flag. The main two lines are set in Ambroise Francois drawn by Jean François Porchez, with the “Till” set in Diversa Sans by Dino dos Santos and Pedro Leal. On the Duck side of the flag we have the numbers 2018, and those are set in Narrow Roman Stencil JNL by Jeff Levine.

Christoffer Leka, Kaisa Leka. License: All Rights Reserved.

Christoffer Leka, Kaisa Leka. License: All Rights Reserved.

But now I feel we should return to the island. The reason I chose to call the island strange a bit earlier has partially to do with the topographical features I already wrote about. But it gets much stranger than that. You’re in for both a history lesson as well as a geography one. For the island Märket not only lies right in-between Finland and Sweden, it also belongs to both countries. Divided half and half, in a sense.

And when I say divided, you might picture a border running right across. That’s where you’d be wrong. Märket hosts one of the most peculiar borders on this planet, as it runs like a ribbon tied into a bow, seemingly all over this insignificant rock in the middle of the sea. The reasons for the strange form of the border are historical – back when Finland still belonged to Russia, a lighthouse was built here. Now as we know unfortunately all too well the Russians have not always viewed borders as something changeless, and thus the lighthouse was constructed on what was then the Swedish side. When the borderline was revised later it was agreed that Sweden should receive an equal share of island as the one Finland had now occupied.

Thus if one wants to take a small swim after enjoying a sauna (of course there is a sauna in a Finnish lighthouse!) then one inevitably crosses over from Finland to Sweden, and once more back to Finland before reaching the water. All in the span of less than a 100 meters. But the form of the border is not the end of the peculiarity – this border is also the longest land border between Finland and Sweden. Two countries that share a total border of some 545 kilometers. Now there’s something to ponder on those long nights you lay awake in bed!

Christoffer Leka, Kaisa Leka. License: All Rights Reserved.

Our “Till Ytterskären” flag accompanied us to four more lighthouses that summer, each journey worthy its own entry. I’ve included a couple of photographs from those trips as well, but for the stories you should head over to our homepage.

Christoffer Leka, Kaisa Leka. License: All Rights Reserved.

Moslavina is a microregion that people have somewhat forgotten about. Placed in continental Croatia, the region is broken into three administrative counties, which has weakened Moslavina’s identity and sense of familiarity with tourists. Studio Size designed a new destination branding and strategy to rejuvenate their community and attract prospective visitors.

The new visual identity had to be authentic and reawaken a sense of belongingness and pride in the local people. So we created a coat of arms, a flag, an anthem, and a slogan that determines Moslavina as a “land” that might have been hidden but never forgotten.

Museu do Tesouro Real, or Royal Treasure Museum, is a museum in Lisbon that houses several collections related to Portugal’s royal history, including the crown jewels, power insignia of the kings, coins and medals, and gold and diamons from Brazil. It was inaugurated in 2022, using Prumo as the main typeface for the logo, exhibition and communication.

The design by Francisco Providência uses Prumo Display and Prumo Text. On the website, Prumo Text is paired with the sans-serif Priva.

Back cover, with most typography set in BM Elephand. The accompanying serif is BM Erol Unziale Text.

Korea Town Acid is an electronic music artist and DJ from Toronto, Canada. The cover art for her album record Elephant in the Room was designed by me, Murathan Biliktu. I made a custom typeface for the album called BM Elephand, which was inspired by the childlike, therapeutic, and raw theme of the record. I also created various gig posters for Korea Town Acid, which mainly use fonts by my Biliktü Foundry.

Album cover with an elephant painted by Peter Chan

Poster set in BM Erkin, including its condensed Flare style

Poster set in Acta and BM Ikon

Poster set in BM Erkin and Roboto

Tour dates announced on Instagram, set in BM Erkin, Noto Sans Mono and BM Arbeiter Neue

Por unha bioloxía da imaxe (“Towards a Biology of the Image”) is an exhibition catalogue designed by Clara Sancho for the Spanish artist Clara Carvajal. The publication presents two successive series from Clara Carvajal: Dioses de la Frontera (“Gods of the Frontier”) and Argucia (“Sophistry”). It was published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at the art center CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea) in 2021.

The typeface Recita was used for all texts of this multilingual publication (Galician, Spanish, and English) in different colours to differentiate the languages.

Voodoo Voodoo was commissioned to design and develop a new visual identity for Moreau Kusunoki – a Franco-Japanese international architecture practice founded in 2011 by Nicolas Moreau and Hiroko Kusunoki, whose combined experiences include working at the renowned architecture firms of SANAA, Kengo Kuma, and Shigeru Ban.

The extensive identity system was developed across a wide spectrum of printed and digital applications, including stationery, templates for internal and external communications, publications, plan drawings, and website. The latter was implemented in collaboration with London-based studio LeCollective.

Design and creative direction by Catarina Pereira / Voodoo Voodoo

From the University of Texas Press:

Gone With The Wind is one of the most popular movies of all time. To commemorate its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2014, The Making of Gone With The Wind presents more than 600 items from the archives of David O. Selznick, the film’s producer, and his business partner John Hay “Jock” Whitney, which are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. These rarely seen materials, which are also being featured in a major 2014 exhibition at the Ransom Center, offer fans and film historians alike a must-have behind-the-camera view of the production of this classic.

On the half-title and title pages, Medusa is used with swash initials and terminal forms, as well as flourishes from its Ornaments style. The italic caps are likewise from Medusa – these are provided as small caps. The author names use Ashbury in italic (Steve Wilson) and roman caps (Robert Osborne). The dust jacket features Finura, with Transat used for “Harry Ransom Center”.

Photos: Turner Classic Movies. See more images on Derek George’s portfolio website.

Wallpaper poster on the anatomy of typefaces, by visual artist Arno Kathollnig. Arno combined a roman text face, Arlt by Alejandro Lo Celso (Pampa Type) with the handwritten-looking Duffy Script by Nick Shinn (ShinnType) and an outlined slab serif, Anubis by Dino dos Santos (DSType).

For the rebranding of my Advocate design agency, I chose to use Maga by DSType. I was looking for a 'sturdy', modern serif, with old style figures, that comes with a heavy weight – and Maga fits the bill.

The Daydream Fit was an Enschede based emo/noise-rock four-piece, active from 2013 to 2016. Together with Utrecht based bedroom label S/D Records, they’ve released their entire discography on cassette tape, including their EPs Make Me Forget (2013), Traveling (2014), their record album The Daydream Fit (2016) and a handful of singles recorded along the way.

The concept for the artwork of the discography is a reference to the expression “a final nail in the coffin”. Although a discography is in most cases more of a post-mortem release — an epitaph, so to speak — the band admitted that some day they might get back together again to make music. For this reason, the final/fourth nail put in the coffin is left out.

All typography uses Leitura News and Leitura Sans from DSType.

Risograph printed on Superbrut 1.5 150 gsm paper by Knust Press, Nijmegen. On-shell printing and cassette dubbing by T.A.P.E. MUZIK, Leipzig. Released by S/D Records on April 2nd, 2021. Edition of 50.

[More info on Discogs]

In 2018 we were contacted by designer Naomi Abel to make some adjustments to our previously published typeface Girga, so it could be used as the wordmark for Wabash College.

From Naomi Abel: “Full rebrand of Wabash College, a small, liberal arts school located in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The identity system spanned from the art direction of original photography to revised admissions materials. All materials are grounded by a unique wordmark and graphic system which retains Wabash’s collegiate roots while referencing its unique sensibilities.”

Across the identity, Girga is used as display typeface and is paired with Untitled Sans for text.

KPB is a consulting firm with a diverse team of specialist in the fields of business development, innovation and analytics. They work with a broad range of clients from start-ups to Norway’s largest companies. By North was commissioned to design a new identity for KPB that could reflect their competence and position as a market leader in their field.

We built the identity around the concept of partnership, reflected in the ampersand used in the logotype. As well as being the building block for the logotype, Parabole Display is used in headlines to emphasize keywords. Combined with Leitura it creates a playful and modern language without compromising legibility and content. The color palette is sparse, but warm and inviting and underscores KPB’s desire to work together with their clients and form lasting partnerships.

From the website of design studio Torino (translated from Swedish):

Journalisten is the member magazine of the Swedish Journalists Association, and Sweden’s largest media magazine. The magazine is published 10 times a year and has a circulation of about 15,500 copies. In the spring of 2017, Torino was commissioned to give Journalisten a completely new form, a very exciting assignment as the entire Swedish journalist corps knows and has an opinion about the newspaper.

When the old form had a few years on its neck, it had become somewhat outdated and contrastless in expression. The overall goal was therefore to create a more distinct graphic form, both for the magazine as a whole but also for different parts of it.

In the autumn of 2020, we were once again given the confidence to update the form as the magazine would shrink from its tabloid-like format to a more classic magazine.

This time we would not create something new from scratch but adapt the existing shape – columns, typography, colors, graphic elements, etc. – to a smaller format. As well as refining and developing certain parts of the magazine to better fit in a magazine information.

The result was a modern and “tightly playful” news magazine that provides a lot of space for pictures but can still offer text-heavy reviews.

The cover was also given a tighter and cleaner basic form that at the same time allows many different types of images and typographic solutions on headings to create variation between the covers and give each cover job a distinctive touch.

Breve Display from DSType is used for the logo, and some details in the magazine interior; their Acto is used for subheaders, intro paragraphs, page navigaton. Main headlines use Sole Serif Display from CAST, and the body copy is in Mercury from Hoefler & Co.

Article opening pages.

Text details featuring Sole Serif, Acto & Mercury.

Box detail featuring Breve Display and Acto.

Box detail featuring Acto and Sole Serif.

Editorial design for the Resort 2019 issue and the Holiday Guide for warehouse Bergdorf Goodman, led by design director Elina Asanti and senior designer Stefanie Brückler for NR2154. The typography uses the complete set of DSType’s Keiss typefaces both for text and headlines, along with a few weights of Druk Wide and Druk Text Wide.

Welly is a company that sells premium and fun first aid bandages and other essentials. For the identity they use a customised stencil version of DSType’s Leitura Display Italic together with Leitura News and Commercial Type’s Styrene A for the product tagline and descriptions. Welly worked with Prime Studio on product design and Partners & Spade on brand and identity.

In 2015 Havas Design + redesigned the corporate identity of the 500 year old Portuguese postal service CTT, using exclusively Acto. In the same year CTT created also a new bank, Banco CTT, with the identity of both branches unified by the use of the same typeface.