Identity and website design of Trial and Error, a DIY music conference in Hannover, Germany:

We’re a DIY music conference that brings together creatives of all genres and welcomes participants of all experience levels since 2018. The event promotes creative exchange, experimentation, and the sharing of technology and knowledge with a strong focus on subculture and not on commercial viability. We are guided by the DIY spirit of the early punk scene, in which the joy of doing things yourself is paramount, failure is recognized as part of the process, and solidarity rather than competition is the order of the day.

The design by Bareis + Nicolaus uses Right Grotesk by Alex Slobzheninov, available via Pangram Pangram.

The old knights' estate Gut Bennigsen in the countryside near Hanover, Germany, is a manor first documented in 1311. One of the decendants inherited the estate some years ago and turned it into a space for events and concerts with further plans to expand the experience.

Transatlantika created a visual identity and promotes Gut Bennigsen concerts and events with marketing campaigns. This promotional brochure explains the concept of Gut Bennigsen. It talks about the rich history of the place and future development plans.

The Gut Bennigsen logo features the name‘s phonetic spelling to make it pronouncable in an international setting. It also puts the brand into a literary and cultural context.

This invoice by Eduard Kleefeld’s chocolate and cocoa factory in Hanover, Germany, is set in four sizes of Georg Belwe’s Belwe-Gotisch. The initials just above the fold are from Belwe-Antiqua. Both typefaces were released around the same time (1912/1913) by the Schelter & Giesecke foundry in Leipzig. The roman also appears on the green slip where it is paired with Bravour.

Leo Göpfert had ordered 60 bars of cooking chocolate, 25 rolls of cookies, and 50 bars of fondant chocolate for his shop in Lohr/Main.

Zoom in to see the various ligatures included in Belwe-Gotisch. For example, “Poſtſcheckkonto” has pairs for ſt, ch, and ck.

German toy company HABA hired Transatlantika to design the new packaging for their Cars product line. The studio selected Disc as the primary typeface, supported by Castledown.

Tuta (formerly Tutanota) is a company that respects its users’ privacy. They offer and develop the most secure email, calendar and contact services – the first one with quantum-safe encryption. Placing ethics before profit, makes Tuta a reliable partner, trusted by over ten million private users and thousands of companies, including major financial institutions and human rights organizations.

Typography played a key role in conveying Tuta’s brand voice. To make sure the messaging stands out according to their main motto, “Turn ON Privacy”, it was decided to play dynamically with the font in a scrolling animation which reflects the action of easily turning on privacy through data encryption. With that, the audience could get a visual idea of how Tuta ensures data privacy.

For this new step in the brand development, new typography was introduced with a sleek and modern look. MD IO, a contemporary monospaced typeface was designed by Rutherford Craze with clarity and legibility in mind, particularly at small sizes and on digital screens. A monospaced font brings with it a technological vibe from the lines of programming code, but MD IO also adds a human touch through organic small details, like the inktraps in the letter N. Its non-geometric shape breaks the rigidity of straight lines, bringing organic details to the letters that above all else resonate Tuta’s belief: Privacy is a human right.

3D model & animation coding by Yohei Yamasaki. Illustrations by Patricia Tarczynski.
For more info, read the full case study.

A monospaced font enables a change of text to happen seamless and smooth, without sudden movements

A scrolling animation plays with the encryption of the title and the rotation of Tuta’s signet, the switch

Use of MD IO Italic on socials to highlight key words that promote features releases and fresh blog post topics

A slide from an internal presentation using MD IO for highlights and relying on Noto Sans as a secondary font.

The cover shows the country’s name in three scripts: Latin (Qazaqstan), Cyrillic (Казахстан), and Arabic (قازاقستان).

The author of the book, Alima Bisenova, writes:

Qazaqstan, Labyrinths of Post-Colonial Discourse responds precisely to this internal intellectual demand of Kazakh society for reflection on the problems of postcoloniality, for rethinking the (Soviet) past and understanding its current “place in the world” as a “small” (from the point of view of geopolitical influence) country, torn apart by cultural contradictions. How to talk about the “inconvenient past”, how to find one’s own identity and one’s own voice despite the “pressure of the metropoles”, and how to get rid of post-colonial complexes? The authors of the book, in their research, have intensely worked and reflected on many of these issues, and the time has come to present their thoughts and reflections to the judgment of an interested reader.

The book was designed in the summer of 2022 in Germany by Yevgen Anfalov, assisted by Ukrainian designer Olesia Bachyns’ka. Yevgen took the robust format of 130×195 mm so the volume is easy to carry, despite its thickness and thanks to its lightweight. The book is text- heavy: its layout follows the reader’s pragmatism. There are enough margins and room for footnotes, and all the cross-references are set in margins and linked to respective images. The book is unique of its kind as it is the first collective work on Kazakh post-colonialism.

The main language is Russian, functioning as a lingua franca for all post-Soviet countries. As original texts in Kazakh Cyrillic were set, language support of the body face was of big importance. The main carrier of the book's identity is the font KTF Labyrinth, made by Yevgen specifically for its occasion. It takes on the metaphor of a labyrinth as derived from the book’s title and is being used on the cover as well as on the chapter titles (pp. 3–4).

Due to the poor resolution of some delivered visual materials, they were digitally reconstructed as on p. 15. A special “book within a book” section features “post-colonial fiction” (pp. 21–22), marked by black margins, as if it were a scan of a smaller book. All in all, the book was made under limitations in paper stock due to sanctions on Russian suppliers (using the only suitable materials that were anticipated "blindly" at the distance) and printed at rather a fast pace, including night shifts – most likely resulting in a slight misplacement of the cover, which is shifted downward to 3 mm. All the print supervision was handed out to Anuar Duisenbinov, the project manager, who did his best to describe the outcome via smartphone videos and using LANGUAGE. The book production reflects its time and social conditions for sure. However, the book is an important lecture on Kazakh culture and has come to the world in a print run of 1,000 exemplars. It’s available from Tselinny.

The SK Freie Szene e.V. was founded in 2022 in Cologne, Germany, as a network for costume, scenography, and visual arts with a focus on the independent performing arts. Its central goal is to support costume designers, scenographers, and visual artists by creating more visibility, providing qualifications, listing job placements, and offering opportunities to exchange knowledge within the artistic sector.

Studio Sara Cristina Moser developed an expressive visual identity for the network using a vibrant colour palette and the typefaces Hofmann by Nguyen Gobber and Bastardo Grotesk by Giulia Boggio.

Schmuck und körperbezogenes Objekt als reflexive Praxis! / Jewellery and body-related object as reflective practice! is the title of this bilingual catalog which provides insights into the work, positions and thoughts of students and graduates of the department of jewellery and body-related objects at the HAWK – University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hildesheim. The results of 24 students from various semester projects and theses from the years 2020–2022 are collected in this publication.

The brochure shows how jewellery and body-related objects can be thought of, which backgrounds flow into approaches and works and how an expanded idea of jewellery can be formulated both theoretically and practically. The works are collectivized within five collections and illustrate a contemporary discourse and a range of artistic research and design approaches.

The brochure is accompanied by three texts that reflectively share extended perspectives, experiences and attitudes towards the phenomenon of jewellery and body-related objects.

Fonts in use: Inter by Rasmus Andersson plus Loretta and Loretta Display by Joana Correia and Abel Martins.

From Mr Bongo:

Descending from the eclectic underground of Minsk, Belarus, SOYUZ [Cyrillic: СОЮЗ] seek to re-imagine the 1970s Música popular Brasileira movement by connecting the dots between the jazz-orientated, non-English speaking pop music of the 20th century, and modern-day compositions. Led by composer and vocalist Alex Chumak, the name SOYUZ translates to ‘union’ reflecting the creative collaboration of the trio, including one of the key figures of the Belarusian underground scene Mikita Arlou and drummer Anton Nemahai.

The album typography combines two unreleased typefaces from Kyiv Type Foundry, KTF Cirk and KTF Forma.

See also this animation on Instagram.

We were very pleased to be commissioned with the redesign of the German version of Technology Review. The magazine of the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology covers news and topics from science and technology in an exciting and, above all, low-threshold way. The German edition published by Heise Verlag is editorially independent from the licensor and supplements the content of the American version with its own contributions from a European perspective.

In addition to a general refresh, we wanted to make the potential of the content attractive to a broader audience by visually loosening it up. Our redesign is based on colorfulness, characteristic typography, and a flexible design grid (see video) that provides the in-house graphics team with both guidelines and sufficient freedom in the layout. The fonts in use are Relative (Colophon) and ABC Favorit (Dinamo). The graphic innovations were implemented starting with the first issue of 2022.

Editor-in-Chief: Luca Caracciolo
Art direction and design: Bureau Bordeaux
DTP management and cover designs: Matthias Timm

{ths} created a proposal for the new corporate design for the Sprengel Museum Hannover, as an entry for a design competition announced by the state capital Hanover.

The basis of our proposal is a very flexible design system with a maximum recognition value. The new logo of the Sprengel Museum Hannover is not an independent element but a part of the flexible system and can be changed according to requirements – it retains its recognition in every set form. The corporate design is designed in such a way that even without a logo, the museum is unambiguously identifiable.

Together with our type foundry Cape Arcona we developed a typographic system with several corporate and custom fonts including a font for the logo, title and body text. Our goal was to develop a simple, traceable system that works on posters, posters, advertisements, flyers, tickets and other media. High recognition and high flexibility in the conversion of all print media.

The SMH-A typeface was developed especially for this project. This custom typeface is used for the logo as well as for all exhibition titles and headlines. It ensures the strongest recognition effect; the new logo of the museum would also be set in SMH-A, thus making exhibition titles and headlines an extension of the logo. Even without a logo — only by placing an exhibition title — the Sprengel Museum Hannover is recognizable again. The use of the typeface for both titles logo allows content and institution to grow together into one big one.

The SMH-A typeface was later renamed to CA Saygon Display and CA Saygon Text and made available as a retail typeface.

From Novag:

Novag takes farmers into the future: Modern no-tillage seed drills constructed and produced in France ensure greater yields coupled with reduced costs. Our company founders Ramzi and Antoine have strong connections with agriculture. They pursue improvement in all areas, be it innovative technologies or the development of environmental, economical and social excellence. The result is outstanding machinery, unique in terms of quality, reliability and value retention, and which pays off in the long term – for the people who operate it, as well as for the environment around it.

Since 2018, Heine Warnecke Design is responsible for the corporate design of Novag SAS. The primary brand typeface is Ciutadella Slab by Emtype Foundry. It’s supported by Supria Sans by HVD Fonts.

You think the text below was written with a typewriter? I tell you No!

Quite a dramatic use of Eckmann in this ad in an issue of Deutscher Buch- und Steindrucker from April 1907. First cast in 1900, the typeface by the Rudhard’sche Gießerei (from 1906 known as Gebrüder Klingspor) was available in sizes ranging from 6 to 96 pt. This is definitely one of the larger ones, if not the largest.

Wilhelm Huch in Hanover, Germany was the general distributor of the typewriter-style printing device “Proco Prozess” for Central Europe. It allowed printers to produce direct mail advertising on a letterpress machine, which was much cheaper and more convenient than manually typing the text and copying it (by means of mimeograph and hectograph machines, or carbon paper). The “Proco Prozess” promised a very accurate imitation of typewritten text, which apparently was favored over plain typographic text for its perceived authenticity and intimacy. The ad copy provides a convincing demonstration, featuring small irregularities and slightly uneven ink spread across the letterforms.

The wide sans is unidentified. The extended styles of Akzidenz-Grotesk are somewhat similar, but came later, in 1909/1911. Thanks to the fantastic database of sans serifs sold in 19th-century Germany compiled by Dan Reynolds, I’m confident that the sans used for Huch’s name is Breite magere Steinschrift by Krebs. The last line is set in a Schmale runde Grotesk, or condensed rounded sans, possibly the one available from AG für Maschinenbau und Schriftgießerei.

Title page.

A few sample pages of a book on genealogy set entirely in Tages-Antiqua. “The practical genealogist” is a “guide for teaching in the genealogical classes as well as for self-teaching for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with a preface and an appendix: Explanations about temple work, partially in question and answer form.” Written by Oswald Seifert in April 1920 in Hanover, Germany, the book was published by the Church in Basel, Switzerland (but printed by Londners Buckbruckerei in Hanover). A full scan is available at the Internet Archive.

Foreword.

With seven large-format, hand-woven carpets the artist Linde Burkhardt interprets the lifestyle and the culture of the Etruscans. These carpets are presented in the exhibition The Joys of the Etruscans at the Museum August Kestner and supplemented with original objects of Etruscan art and culture.

As an alternative to a classic museum catalog, we collaborated with curator Dr. Anne-Viola Siebert and developed the concept for Toska magazine. Mixed with the reprographics of the exhibits there is a wide variety of articles dealing with the Etruscan culture of life: cultural history texts as well as Etruscan recipes or current travel reports from Tuscany. This creates a connection between the past “dead” history of the Etruscans and current science, art, and culture. This idea is also supported by the design.

Based on the flashed look of fashion and lifestyle magazines, we set up a photo shoot for the cover design of Toska with the exhibits in a new contextualization outside of showcases and pedestals and in relation to casual everyday situations. The seven carpets by Linde Burkhardt are presented as a practical format in an inserted brochure.

The “TOSKA” wordmark on the cover uses Avara Bold. All text is set in ABC Prophet, in roman and italic styles.

In winter 2017/18 we were asked to participate in the collective transformation process of the various cultural centers operated by the city of Hanover. In a number of workshops, initiated and accompanied by Identitätsstiftung, the group’s aim was to face and master the challenges of digitalization and generational change as a cultural institution. Together with the initiators we created a five parts publication named Funkenflug – Stadtteilkultur im Wandel (“Flying sparks – urban district culture in transition”). It consists of a box with booklets, including a collection of illustrations and an atmospheric photographic essay, and can be read as a project documentation and used as an interactive toolbox.

Mériva and Mériva Extra are used throughout.

The project won an iF Award in 2020, and a Silver Medal in the DDC “Gute Gestaltung” 2019.

From the 3rd longplayer with the same name. Their worldwide biggest hit.

The single sleeve uses similar artwork as the album cover, with Emil Schult’s painting, which is a direct visual translation of the lyrics:

Wir fahr’n fahr’n fahr’n auf der Autobahn
Vor uns liegt ein weites Tal
Die Sonne scheint mit Glitzerstrahl
Die Fahrbahn ist ein graues Band
Weiße Streifen, grüner Rand

The typography is the same as well, just bigger, with Futura in white caps, stacked and justified. The back side shows the German motorway symbol that’s also prominently featured on the UK release of the LP. Apart from Schult, no designer is credited. The sleeve was printed by Münstermann-Druck KG, Hanover.

RIP Florian Schneider (1947–2020).

Brasilia is a monothematic magazine of designs students of Hochschule Hannover, under the art direction of Hanover-based design studio Bureau Bordeaux (Jasper Eisenecker, Arne Meyer, Christian Vukomanovic).

“For Brasilia #1, we once set up some pretty rough typographical ground rules that specify the layout grid, the logo placement and the use of three typefaces—MT Grotesque, Times and an additional style font, that varies from issue to issue and fits the topic,” says the Bureau Bordeaux team.

The additional style font chosen for issue #3 is Dominicale Alpha (Altiplano Typefaces).

Issue #3 of Brasilia considers the notion of “waiting,” approaching the subject from all angles in a series of written, illustrated and photographic editorials.

Irene Themann designed the visual identity for the Jazzwoche (“Jazz Week”), which is organized annually by the Jazz Musiker Initiative Hannover e.V.

Coupé (Nouvelle Noire) is used for titles. The stencil face by Philippe Apeloig is paired with Hannes von Döhren’s Pluto Sans (HvD Fonts) for text. The images show posters and brochures from the 2017 (red) and 2018 (orange) editions of the festival. See more images on Irene Themann’s portfolio website.

Brasilia is a monothematic magazine published by students from the Design and Media department of the Hochschule Hannover. It tells “stories by designers for designers, and for everyone who feels at home in this field”.

When do we no longer need something, and how do we make that decision? For its fifth edition, Brasilia set out on a quest to define what is superfluous; to explore how much is too much. Over the course of 150 pages, Brasilia’s interviews, comics and photographic works attempt to cover as many aspects of the wide-ranging topic of waste as possible, with each article also having its own individual look, tailored to support the message of its written narrative. — Stack

Brasilia No. 5 presents an early use of Trash by Bruta Types. The secondary typefaces include Monotype Grotesque and Times New Roman. This issue was awarded Student Magazine of the Year at the 2018 Stack Awards. 220×285 mm, 152 pages, bilingual (German and English).

Release poster