Toronto-based agency newkid (a play on the concept of the newly-arrived kid in town, or in school) claims to nurture the visual Identity as well as the verbal identity when approaching a client. They did so beatifully with their all-encompassing rebranding of Primer, a Florida-based network of teacher-led K-8 schools that is expanding its presence to other parts of the US.

As stated in the project page, Primer resorted to newkid to rebrand and overhaul its footprint, which entailed “brand strategy, full identity system, website, and brand launch film”. The website is not a mere window display, as the company seeks investors and parents alike to join its network.

The website rebuild brought the full brand system to life across a complete digital experience (...). Built to serve families at every stage of consideration, from first encounter through enrollment, it also functions as a brand statement for investors, press, and prospective Primer Leaders.

As we’ll see, a playful and colourful Mondrian-like grid and two gorgeous fonts support this effort: Sirca by the Parisian foundry Edito and Söhne by Klim Type Foundry from Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Sirca Medium is employed in the six-letter wordmark and it embodies the charisma and the gravitas of a brand that exudes the privilege of quality private education and the promise of multifaceted creative learning.

Söhne Buch is used for buttons, some explanatory or secondary items headlines and body copy, but Sirca still reigns supreme, just like San Diego’s famed news anchorman Ron Burgundy in the 70s.

One thing to note is that typographical hierarchy here is definitely not constrained by customary web-based typesetting, as no headline is too loud or strident from a design point of view to outshine the Primer wordmark.

For instance, the news section header, “Latest Primer news”, is 2.5rem– or 48px tall, only slightly bigger than the Primer wordmark: the logo SVG seems to be rendered by the browser at circa 32px—pun intended. Then, each headline features 1.75rem/33px headlines.

So the scale used purposely avoids excessive contrast in the headline line-up and adopts a smooth sizing approach.

One exception would be the often-neglected footer section, which has been cooked to perfection, meaning grid, typographical contrast and use of photography. The size contrast is enough to parade the wordmark in all its glory, although the designers chose to use a blue-coloured dot at the end to punctuate —pun intended—the brand.

Some of the signature traits of Sirca are the sharp edges in the m’s and w’s and its distintictive letter a, which seems to have lost weight due to a bout of melancholy. They cannot be spotted in the Primer mark, but the reader can still catch them in the headlines.

As for the marketing copy, claims and leading ideas have been fitted into very short headlines that extend the glow of the flagship serif employed in the project. Nothing is out of place or necessarily in the expected place in the website, and the sans/serif pairing works like a son cubano choreography: leader and follower both shine in their respective roles.

In a time of Claudemania, AI imagery and design copycats, the Primer brand and editorial vision serves as a showcase of what fine art direction, fine photograpy and videomaking, fine typography and fine copywriting—all of them human-based—are capable of. Cheers to human craft.

Wordmark

Website footer

For Unrivaled Basketball, Wheelhouse built a bold, cohesive identity grounded by a single typographic voice: Sequel Sans. The typeface appears everywhere – starting with the league logo and extending seamlessly across merchandise, advertising, marketing materials, and an extensive social media presence.

Designed by Oliver Jeschke for OGJ Type, the typeface brings the same level of clarity and authority as the players in the league. While its range of weights and widths would allow any system to flex effortlessly across formats, Unrivaled appears to only use a single style: Sequel Sans Extended Bold. This keeps the typographic palette tight and focussed. Set large, fast, and often in motion, the type reinforces Unrivaled's competitive energy and modern, culture-forward positioning.

The result is a typographic system that doesn’t just support the brand – it is the brand. Consistent, confident, and unmistakably current, Sequel Sans gives Unrivaled Basketball a visual identity that holds up at every scale.

Read more about Wheelhouse and their Unrivaled Basket project.

King & Partners developed the brand identity for Four Seasons Naples, built around the concept Impressions of Paradise, expressed through bespoke botanical illustrations and tactile design details. The Merchant Room is a refined New American Brasserie by two-time James Beard Award–winning chef Gavin Kaysen, inspired by the elegance of Old Florida. The Merchant Room branding is set in Romie Regular and Italic, designed by Margot Lévêque.

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

The eye chart that featured in the Sea Lion High show at SeaWorld Orlando used the letter R from Hobo, with auxiliary text in Futura. The varsity font probably is Nebraska with added contour.

Butter Baked Cookies + Cakes is a micro-bakery in Seminole, Tampa Bay, Florida. The Butter Baked logo was designed to feel fun and bright – playful but not overly sweet. We wanted it to have a light and airy quality, evoking the feeling of freshly baked treats. The top primary logos take inspiration from frosted cookies, with the drop shadow effect making each letter look like you could pick it up and take a bite.

Beyond aesthetics, versatility was a key consideration. The “cloud” version of the primary logo works well for large-scale applications, especially over images, adding a soft, dreamy feel. Meanwhile, the secondary logos were created with practicality in mind. The circular logos function perfectly as stickers or packaging seals, reinforcing the brand’s handcrafted charm. For embroidery or small-scale applications, the simplest logo (without the drop shadow or sparkles) is the best choice, ensuring clarity while maintaining the Butter Baked identity.

Omchemy by Joanne van der Boon specializes in holistic coaching for well-being and offers a wide range of teachings in meditation, numerology and the yogic lifestyle. The branding was created by RAW Made, a design studio based in South Florida.

The Omchemy logo uses a bespoke version of Copanero by Azuliq Type, and the typeface’s regular style is used for headlines in the brand’s different touchpoints. For the full logo version a slogan in Commuters Sans by Dharma Type is added. On the website, these typefaces are supported by Victor Gaultney’s Gentium and BLKBK’s Beyond Infinity. The outcome is an inviting, modern, and organic brand.

Source: apps.apple.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Gamay is the typeface chosen for the promotion of Betr.app, a digital platform that offers a blend of fantasy sports and microbetting.

The Gamay font family was designed by Viktoriya Grabowska, with art direction by Eben Sorkin, and released earlier this year. When we were putting Gamay through the hoops at Darden Studio, we had many potential applications and industries in mind. To be honest, sports bets was not among them, but here we are. Did the designers search for a gambling font and stumbled upon Gamay because its name starts with “gam”? We knew that font naming is crucial! In any case, Gamay does look slick in the graphics. With its sharply defined shapes and gestural details, it plays its part in building a fresh and facetious brand image.

Betr makes use of several of Gamay’s six widths, in various weights, and exclusively in all caps. The straightforward sans with the characteristic vertically cut terminals in letters like C G S serves in many of Betr’s social media posts. In the promotional images on the App Store, Gamay is used in the ExtraBold weight, with tightened spacing, and supported by Inter.

Source: apps.apple.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: apps.apple.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: apps.apple.com License: All Rights Reserved.

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

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

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

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

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

A limited edition T-shirt designed by artist and illustrator Gabriel Alcala.

“It’s A Rainbow Full of Sound” – a quote from the lyrics of a Grateful Dead song – is set in the black weight of Central Type’s Rodger.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by cardboardamerica@gmail.com Jordan Smith and tagged with “smoke” and “futura”. License: All Rights Reserved.

Branded matchbook for the Hurricane Motor Lodge in Marathon, Florida, produced Universal Match, Miami. The left-leaning Smoke is here used to symbolize the impact of extreme wind.

Secondary text is set in Futura and News Gothic. The tagline “In the Keys – On the Gulf” is custom script lettering.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by cardboardamerica@gmail.com Jordan Smith and tagged with “smoke” and “futura”. License: All Rights Reserved.

What’s more psychedelic than Arnold Böcklin? Right on, Böcklin in all caps! Here it’s used compleat with its weird H that follows the fraktur construction and the N with the enlarged lowercase form. Props for replacing the original J-like I with a plain form that performs better in all-caps settings.

The Latin species names are set in the IBM Selectric version of Univers.

This newspaper advert from Ann Arbor Sun, April 22, 1976, likewise uses Arnold Böcklin, in combination with handwritten text. Note the hand-drawn Böcklin numerals for the zip code.

From the website of designer Clark Orr:

Poster illustration for New Found Glory’s 2023 “Make The Most Of It” Acoustic Tour, show in Orlando, FL. Screen printed by Native Screen Print.

The poster makes use of various weights and widths of Shuttleblock, and includes additional custom lettering (script and alarm clock type).

Detail, date unknown

Futureport departures board signage seen in the Horizons attraction located in the Future World section of the EPCOT Center at Walt Disney World, Florida. This attraction was first opened in 1983, though some of these images are from a later or unknown date. The sign features Earth paired with LCD.

Full view of the Futureport departures board, circa 1998. The Departures text is rendered in outline/contour.

GE Advertising Manager Karl Koss standing in front of the Futureport departures board, as seen in a 1983 promotional booklet produced by General Electric to promote Horizons

With over a decade of trade experience, the craftsmen behind the Porcelain Shoppe have chosen a new and exciting material in large format porcelain slabs, and are the go-to experts for handling it logistically and creatively. While the rest of the industry is seemingly stuck in the past using less efficient material for commercial and residential surfaces, Porcelain Shoppe is cutting a different path.

The sharp, brutal angles from Pangram Pangram’s Gosha Sans was chosen to represent the strong lines and hard corners of the porcelain slab material itself.

Brand identity design and photography by Poolboy Studio.

From Topos Graphics’ case study:

Tropic Bound is a biennial artists’ book fair led by Cristina Favretto, Sarah Michelle Rupert, and Ingrid Schindall. The inaugural 2023 fair featured book-centric tours through Miami, panel discussions, artist talks, and over 60 art book exhibitors.

With an energetic blend of colors, type, and textures, the brand kit for Tropic Bound created a perfect background for this joyous weekend event.

Tropic Bound’s identity represents the book arts. Their priorities are not just to showcase this artistic outcome, though. Rather, they want to illuminate it as an interactive, intimate, and provocative art experience. The brand is all about craft and materiality; its foundation is inspired by different techniques related to book arts: woodcuts, marbling, and watermarks.

The process began in 2020, and Tropic Bound’s inaugural Fair took place February 2023.

And a bit more about the typography:

Tropic Bound’s identity uses two font families: Luzi Type’s Koper, combined with XYZ Type’s Escalator. Koper, used as an expressive display typeface, was inspired by rough woodcuts, as seen in its edges and angular features. Escalator serves as a geometric compliment—an approachable, friendly sans serif used for subheads and body copy.

With the help of Jesse Ragan of XYZ Type, our logotype design [based on Koper] utilizes angular shapes, exhibiting sharp, woodcut-like cuts.

See more in the full case study, and visit tropicboundfair.org.

The cover and spine displaying a modified Zaft² in combination with Cardone

A24's recent publication designed by Studio Elana Schlenker and Jordi Ng. A 574-page hyper-local travel guide book to the most far-out state in America. The book features a puffy cover with blocky, eccentric display typography reminiscent of classic Florida postcards (a modified version of WT Zaft² published by WiseType and designed by Jacob Wise and Céline Hurka). The rest of the book features a range of typefaces including Fátima Lázaro’s Cardone (205TF), Swiss 721 (Bitstream), and Hammer (Out of the Dark).

The colour palette revolves around a “Florida Pink” swatch, a shade of pink that was pulled from the wildlife and architecture of the state. Each chapter of the book corresponds to a different geographical part of the state and begins with a fold-out illustrated map of the locations and landmarks in that chapter. Folios on the side of each page provide strong wayfinding and a sense of location throughout the book.

Edited by Gabrielle Calise and illustrated by Gabriel Alcala, with an introduction by Tyler Gillespie.

Published by A24 Books, 2022
547 pp.
6.5 × 8.5 in.
Puff cover with embossed detailing
Gatefold chapter maps

A close up of the embossed puff-cover showing Gabriele Alcala's illustrations integrated with the Zaft² font.

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]

Concert poster for a 2021 show at the now-defunct Miami bar Las Rosas. Lineup featuring South Florida groups Do Not Air, The Supplements, Woolbright, and The Curfew. For titles, all caps Schmalfette Grotesk-follower Swiss Interlock by Photo-Lettering.

I have all the OpenType settings turned off, so what you see has more of a Swiss Gothic look.

Show post/poster for The Supplements at Miami bar/venue Thank You Miami. Two typefaces often miscredited to David Carson are used, Big Ed and Serifedsans. Edwin Utermohlen designed Big Ed in 1995. Address details come courtesy of Benton Sans Compressed as it’s the more legible choice to Serifedsans at such a low size.

Some 1990s/Wolf of Wall Street influence, for sure. I actually used some AI to sketch out an image based on keywords, then remade/refined with Photoshop.

In December of 2022, It’s Nice That unveiled a curated collection of art prints featuring work from a wide range of artists and graphic designers. The prints were made available to purchase through the site RoomFifty.

This particular print was designed by Gabriel Alcala.

"We hope you'll" is set in Gooper Regular Italic. "Stick Around" is set in Central Type's Zonk with an outline and drop shadow added.

The line “crêpes & baguettes” is added in Franklin Gothic Condensed.

Apropo started in 2001 in the Dolphin Mall, Sweetwater, Florida (USA), as a French cuisine-informed mall food court restaurant. They have two locations in South Florida, one in Quito, Ecuador. The logo uses Inverserif.

In this example, the secondary typeface is Calibri.