Village Green has designed five typographic posters pairing fonts donated from ten different font foundries to raise funds for War Child UK. The posters are available as limited edition screen prints.

The participating foundries are Dinamo, Narrow Type, Newglyph, Maxitype, Tup Wanders, PFA-Typefaces, D0UBLE ZER0, Comicraft, Blambot, and Rellence (prev. Ultra Kuhl).

From The Brand Identity:

The Font Family project pairs two foundries on each B2 poster, creating bold compositions that loosely suggest human figures. It’s a playful concept that works on multiple levels – these typographic ‘people’ become a family of sorts, just as the foundries, printers and designers collaborating on the project form their own creative community. All profits from the screen-printed editions go to War Child UK.

The technical side shaped the creative decisions from the start. Working with Ricky at Mesh & Blade in east London, the team designed specifically for screen printing’s strengths and limitations. The bold, colourful characteristics were perfect for the process, but it meant thinking differently about colour separation and registration. “We were also keen to get away from our desks and have conversations about finishes, stocks and inks,” Fearn explains. “From a technical perspective, we kept things relatively bold and minimal with high contrast and simplified colour layers, which ensured the designs translated cleanly and consistently at scale.” That hands-on approach reflects something larger about the project’s philosophy. In a world where remote work and digital-first thinking dominate, there’s something refreshing about a project that brings people together around physical processes and shared goals.

Telka and Metaballs

Screen printing at Mesh & Blade

Azurio and Alpenkreuzer / Baikal and Zzzap / ABC Gravity and Damn Noisy Kids / 00 Hypertext Mono and Meilen

Volume 6 is the fourteenth installment in the You Don’t Know Jack franchise, and the sixth general knowledge edition. Titled “The Lost Gold”, it is set in a strange dimension, with the goal to make enough money to free the pirate trapped inside. It was originally released on December 1st of 2003 and is hosted by Josh “Schmitty” Schmitsinstein.

While the YDKJ logo is once more in Franklin Gothic (see the dedicated post), the installment title on the eye patch uses Jack Lantern BB which had been released earlier that year. “Volume” is in Segoe or similar.

The game interface uses various weights and widths from Bureau Grot. This typeface family by David Berlow is based on predigital designs by Stephenson Blake, compare to Grotesque No. 8 and 7.

The logo as seen in the intro

Space Tree is a web cartoon by Ed Atlin that ran from 2004 to 2007 on Keentoons.

The fonts in use are Detectives Inc for “SPACE TREE”, Mars Police for “THE SPACE TREE”, and Damaged Goods for “IN SPACE!”

Official shirt design

The third version of the main page, with the menu text in Lucida Console

The fourth and last version of the main page

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

The necklace numbers use Eurostile Black.

From Wikipedia:

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a 2023 British stop-motion animated comedy film directed by Sam Fell and written by Karey Kirkpatrick, John O’Farrell and Rachel Tunnard. A sequel to Chicken Run (2000), the film was produced by Aardman Animations and stars the voices of Thandiwe Newton, Zachary Levi, Bella Ramsey, Romesh Ranganathan, David Bradley, Daniel Mays, Jane Horrocks, Imelda Staunton, Lynn Ferguson, Josie Sedgwick-Davies, Peter Serafinowicz, Nick Mohammed, and Miranda Richardson. It tells the story of Rocky and Ginger who lead a rescue mission when their daughter has been abducted to a highly-advanced poultry farm run by their old enemy Mrs. Tweedy.

The posters were designed by Empire Design, using Revla Sans as the primary typeface, paired with slanted caps from Impact for the logo. On the character posters, Revla Sans is used in all caps, with a drop shadow and set on an angle. The nicknames are added in Astounder Squared BB, with “Introducing” in Brophy Script.

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

“This time they’re breaking in!” is in Futura.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plastic with Audio is a 2005 album by Lapfox Trax, a music producer known for their numerous aliases, including Renard, whose species is a fox-raccoon or foxcoon.

Much of the front cover contrasts caps from Nate Pieko’s oblique classic Bada Boom with a much rarer face for “presents…”: it’s Springmaus Bold, the Diddl font, or maybe Data Becker’s copy named Branching Mouse. Its original creator appears to be unknown.

John Philips Sage designed an infographic in four posters, based on Andreas Hackl’s research on refugee work in the digital economy. For the typography, he picked Romie by Margot Lévêque and Crime Fighter by Blambot Comic Fonts.

Front and back cover of a DVD with an episode of The Wolf and the Seven Kids by Geppetto’s Workshop, issued by Media Movies & More (MMM) in 2005.

Hobo is used for the title of the episode and “In this Episode”, "Running Away from Home" is set in Nate Piekos' Anime Ace, and “Geppetto’s Workshop” is set in Arial, warped and with highlight effects. The back cover also features Helvetica Rounded for the blurb and Helvetica Condensed for the information.

This DVD from contains 90 minutes worth of classic cartoons.

“Treasure Island” is set in an all-caps Rat Fink Roman, with “and Other Cartoon Treasures” in Bada Boom. “Digitally Remastered” and the Treasure Box Collection logo appears to be set in stretched Palatino. The back cover additionally uses Arial for its blurb.

An advertisement announcing the Simpsons Store App which was released on July 6, 2015.

“Woo-Hoo!” is set in Piekos FX BB, “Simpsons Store App” uses Doohickey on the upper portion and an all-caps Framistat on the lower portion. The action bubbles feature House Brush, and the remaining text uses Mr Mamoulian.

I'm a bit late for Valentine's Day, but here are some humorous cards from Housepets!, a webcomic by Rick Griffin.

Adapted from the Historical Memoirs of Chinese historian Sima Qian (145–86 BCE), Des assassins relates the chivalrous prowess of five ancient Chinese warriors who committed – or attempted to commit – a political assassination.

For the book title on the cover, designers deux point deux chose Min Sans Regular and Bold, designed by Tienmin Lao and available from Future Fonts. This high-contrast sans serif has sharp and clean cuts, as if cut by a sword. The texts inside are set in Bely by Roxane Gataud (TypeTogether) and text in speech bubbles uses Inkslinger BB, designed by Nate Piekos and released through his Blambot type foundry.

The Taiwanese author, Chen Uen, uses a traditional Chinese brush painting technique. We decided to erase some of the borders of the frames, to let the Chen Uen’s art breathe and blow up. The book is published within its original sense of lecture: from back to front from a western perspective.

Des assassins is the first graphic novel – “manhua” in Taiwanese – in the collection Des cases, des langues, des mondes (“cases, languages, worlds) by independent publishing house Patayo.

Poster for an event at Paradiso Noord, Amsterdam, featuring live acts, DJs, artists and designers, all of them performing anonymously. From the Paradiso website (translated):

New music, no names. […]

Anonymous opposes the trend of ever-larger names and less and less exciting club nights where you go with friends for good music. Anonymous refuses to mention who is performing and thus sets expectations. The audience can go out with a fresh look and be surprised again. Artists can play at underground parties free from hype. And that is something artists have missed so much that one of them has canceled another gig for November 29th. At Anonymous the club is again for the music.

Anonymous as counter-movement
The consequences of the Dutch government’s austerity politics on culture are visible everywhere. Since the First Rutte cabinet, the basis for artists and cultural institutions has become so unstable that opting for security remains the only option. The result is avoiding risks and going for guaranteed success. Big names are booked time and again and stop the flow of new talents. Artists ask for and get big fees, and tickets are unaffordable. With such high prices everyone wants to know what they pay for – proof them wrong.

Anonymous takes action against this. Anonymous is uncertainty. Anonymous is risk. Anonymous is surprise. Anonymous is that results from the past offer no guarantee for the future. Anonymous is freedom.

Anonymous is a direct result of the hype. Of the need for certainty. Of cynicism. Anonymous is for the unknown, the indefinable and the ignorance. Anonymous is the immune system that comes into effect. Anonymous is the counter movement. We are Anonymous.

Source: www.lerepairedesmotards.com © MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

Cover of the paperback collection vol. 1, displaying the famous Akira logotype. First printing: Sep. 21, 1984.

Akira (Japanese: アキラ), often stylized as AKIRA, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Katsuhiro Otomo. Set in a post-apocalyptic Neo-Tokyo, the work uses conventions of the cyberpunk genre to detail a saga of turmoil. Initially serialized in the pages of Young Magazine from 1982 until 1990, the work was collected into six volumes by its publisher Kodansha. The work was first published in an English-language version by the Marvel Comics imprint Epic Comics, one of the first manga works to be translated in its entirety. [Wikipedia]

It is now widely recognized that Akira had a huge impact on kids and readers from all around the world in the 1980s and ’90s – and I’m no exception! I’ve always been fascinated not only by the story and Otomo’s incredible drawings but also by all the graphic material surrounding the project and contributing to the Neo-Tokyo universe. One mystery remained unsolved, though: to identify the Akira typeface.

What most of us know as the Akira logo is actually the title on the cover of the paperback collection published by Kodansha from 1984. At the time, the design was astounding. The B5 format with yellow page edges (a color rarely used at the time), and a cover entirely in English, turned the book into a sensational subject that was considered groundbreaking.

I didn’t use the English and Chinese and whatever else on the cover because I was thinking about global distribution. I did it because I had this incredible enthusiasm to just try to make something new. [Otomo in Akira Club]

© MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

Several cover attempts by Otomo and his team. Note the futuristic typefaces used for the title.

Otomo and his design office, Pencil Studio, did a lot of research regarding the cover design and also tried out futuristic typefaces such as Checkmate and Earth. In Akira Club, Otomo mentions:

It took me a lot of time before I was finally able to settle the design. I wanted it to be really packed with stuff and make it feel like you couldn't really tell what country it came from. Due to repeated trial and error, it finally ended up going on sale behind schedule.

Otomo eventually settled on condensed sans-serif capitals to give the title a majestic, yet simple and slightly coarse image and “an air of American comics”. It is unclear if Otomo used a trimmed Impact, or something close, like Schmalfette Grotesk. In the Akira Club book (see below), the caption stated that it’s “Impact with the top and bottom cut.” (translation was double-checked by Akira Yoshino) but it doesn't seem to fit, especially the K and R. Impact Condensed is a bit closer but is still not a perfect match. Geoffrey Lee, the designer of Impact, had recognized that Impact was inspired by Schmalfette. On Typophile, he wrote:

I remember that period well, when many of us admired the vitality and colour of what we knew only as Schmalfette, and used it by old-fashioned cut and paste. Use was limited as it was never made in metal as far as I know, and existed then in capitals and numerals only.
Later someone added (or found) a lowercase for its new existence. I personally find the style lacks the attractive feel of the caps.

Source: harveyjames.tumblr.com © James Harvey. License: All Rights Reserved.

In 2013, James Harvey, the creator of Bartkira, an Akira spoof with The Simpsons characters, made a post about what he thought was the right typeface used for the logo: Haettenschweiler which is also derived from Schmalfette Grotesk.

The most likely answer is that the logo is hand-drawn, based on Schmalfette. (On the Web, some folks have stated that it’s a condensed weight of Rhode, which is close, but that typeface was released years after the manga).

Other typefaces on the cover are Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed (author’s name, publisher, and price) and Dynamo for the number of the volume. The text on the cover flaps is set in Helvetica Inserat.

But before the paperback collection, during the course of AKIRA serialization in Young Magazine, Otomo already experimented with a number of different typefaces for the title logo, including both Latin letters and Japanese katakana.

Source: www.myconfinedspace.com © MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

A diagram showing the various typefaces used for the AKIRA logo, included in the Akira Club book.

The first one, going from issue 1 to 35, used “a bold textbook typeface for photo-typesetting. The キ was made larger so that there is a balance between the three letters.” Akira Yoshino identified it as 石井太教科書体 BTA (Ishii Futo Kyokashotai) from the Shaken (写研) foundry, which was specialized in phototypesetting.

Then, on the cover of issue 36, the title is set in Latin letters from Broadway. Broadway was immediately replaced by ITC Busorama (issues 37 to 48), “which is reminiscent of the New York skyscrapers built in the 20s and 30s”. From issue 49 to 71, the title is again rendered in Japanese katakana. The calligraphic lettering has been done by Hiroshi Hirata, another manga artist. For the last batch of issues, going from 72 to 120, Otomo eventually chose a bold weight of Futura. In Akira Club, he said:

We had finally found the title style that suited Akira’s story.

© MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

The titles of the first issues were set in 石井太教科書体 BTA which can be seen on page 5 of that document.

© MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

Switching to ITC Busorama, Otomo also included his name in the title because it seemed more convenient. Note issue 36, the only one set with Broadway.

© MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

All the tests on this page have been done by Hiroshi Hirata, but it was Otomo who decided on the final form of the calligraphic title that fit the spirit of Akira better.

© MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

“I wanted the title to be written with a brush because I wanted to have a more dynamic logo. I also realized that turning the title to put it horizontally gave the impression of it being written in Roman letters. The title of number 54 has this form for that reason. [Otomo in Akira Club]”

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When switching to Futura, Otomo decided to remove the H from his surname because he did not like it.

Source: fr.pinterest.com © MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

Original lettering style in the Japanese edition.

The speech balloons were initially mostly hand-lettered, but recent translations have used digital typefaces to achieve the job (see below).

© MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

The first foreign edition was the US one, made by Epic Comics from 1988. In addition to the translation, panels were mirrored and it was colorized by Steve Oliff (through his company Olyoptics) and hand-lettered by Michael Higgins, to match American comics standards of that time. Read more about the process and workflow of the translation in The Task of Manga Translation: Akira in the West by M. de la Iglesia.

Source: consequentialart.wordpress.com © Epic Comics/Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

A page frome the Epic Comics edition.

Source: www.otakia.com © MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

Subsequent foreign editions (German, French, Italian, and Spanish ones) were published from 1991, based on Epic Comics’ work. Here’s a panel from the French edition, obviously hand-lettered.

Source: www.mangareader.net © Dark Horse/Kodansha Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

The English Dark Horse edition published in 2001 went back to the original reading order and black and white drawings. It uses Jim Lee by Comicraft (released in 1998) as the dialogue typeface.

Source: www.20minutes.fr © MASH-ROOM Co., Ltd. / Kodansha Ltd./Glénat. License: All Rights Reserved.

The recent French “perfect edition” by Glénat uses Alter Ego from Blambot for dialogues.

There’s a lot more that could be said regarding typefaces and Akira, but I’ll save the movie for the next article. Feel free to comment and add pieces of information that I didn’t find. I’d like to thank Akira Yoshino for his help with this contribution.

Nokia 5200-series phones did not use this type, and later, they used [Nokia Sans], a pixel font designed by Spiekermann.

From the Flickr Set “Typography in ‘Fight Club 2’”.

Supertypes! For the Power of Typography (Spanish original: Supertipos! Por el Poder de la Tipografía) is a small yet compact yearbook which contains over 100 work samples of young Argentinian graphic design students.

Edited in 2014, the annual showcases the results of one of the many projects developed for the two-semester typography class at the University of Buenos Aires. On its 200 pages, it documents two months of processes and features the works of 140 students.

Each page contains a brief personal synthesis of the student’s statement: a textual map developed within a super-hero topic. It is a textual and typographic project which needs no images at all. The entire book is screen-printed and handbound.

Poplar, Flama and Univers were used for the covers and the general interior design. The student works also use Univers and Flama, and, additionally Akzidenz-Grotesk, Benton Sans, Detectives Inc., Fishmonger, and Gotham.

“Each Cold Classics release features a remastered version of a traditional beer style, paired with an homage to pulp science fiction. Each label in the series will feature a glimpse of a larger storyline, featuring the brewery's primary brand character, Eve, and her accomplices. Eve represents Bottle Logic's can-do attitude, rebellious spirit, and thirst for knowledge (and great beer).” — Emrich Office

“Club Penguin is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) involving a virtual world containing a range of online games and activities. It was created by New Horizon Interactive (now known as Disney Canada Inc.) using SmartFoxServer.

Players (the game is specifically designed for children aged 6 to 14) use cartoon penguin-avatars and play in a winter-set virtual world. Club Penguin was made available to the general public on October 24, 2005. New Horizon was purchased by The Walt Disney Company in August 2007 for the sum of 350 million dollars.” — Wikipedia