Corporate design for Quimbaya coffee roasters including logo, letterhead, business cards and web design. Furthermore there’s a packaging design for four sorts of their coffee.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

For the 2015 holidays, the Breitling watch company sent clients a box of chocolate. But they didn’t just slap their logo on some black cardboard and call it a day. Jeremia Adatte designed a colorful WWII-era tin with vintage pin-up and Art Deco influences. The retro art is meant to charm (Adatte chose a relatively tasteful representation of a genre that was inherently sexist), but it’s the thoughtful type choices and treatment that really drew my attention.

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The exterior of the tin is set entirely in Mostra Nuova. Mark Simonson’s type family already includes an extensive range of alternates, but Adatte made some of his own lettering-inspired modifications to a few of the glyphs. For example, to establish a custom logotype for this fictional brand of chocolate, three holes are punched into Mostra Nuova’s ‘BR’, and a dot replaces the middle of the ‘E’. A 3-dimensional extrusion effect completes the look.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

To establish a custom logotype for this fictional brand of chocolate, three holes are punched into Mostra Nuova’s ‘BR’, and a dot replaces the middle of the ‘E’. A 3-dimensional extrusion effect completes the look.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

The sticker on the inside of the box lid is another fairly convincing throwback design using type by comic book lettering experts Comicraft (Rocketship from Infinity), and a typical advertising script (Leader) which comes directly from the archives of Filmotype, a pioneering phototype company founded in the 1950s.

These type genres are perhaps a decade too late in comparison to the Deco-style exterior of the tin. Leader is a very nicely drawn and authentic freehand script, but it’s more mid-’50s than ’40s. Still, it’s close enough, and by the time Breitling’s recipients saw this sticker they were certainly too busy diving into the chocolates to notice or care.

Overall, it’s a warm and lovingly crafted promotional gift celebrating Breitling’s roots in aviation (the company built onboard chronographs for Royal Air Force cockpits). I wouldn’t complain if it landed in my mailbox.

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“We create iconic wristwatches dedicated to the world’s first gentleman, Richard Brathwait. We’re all about genuine quality at a great price, as a true gentleman might go about it.” — brathwait.com

Packaging for Molly & Me Pecans, Charleston, SC, by Studio Nudge:

Molly & Me produces small-batch pecans from their farm in Holly Hill, SC. With a growing customer base, they came to us looking for a rebrand, complete with packaging and an e-commerce website. Utilizing a heavily typographic approach, that feels both classic and bold, we created a refined visual identity that speaks to the gourmet natural of their products.

Branding for a producer of pork and poultry products, seen on Brand New.

As an educational corporation willing to invest in beautiful things to promote their language courses around the world, EF (Education First) is a typographer’s dream client. Albin Holmqvist was the lucky designer to take on their latest campaign, letting type do the talking in four short films produced by Swedish firm Camp David. The videos romanticize Paris, Barcelona, Beijing, and London in a genuinely sweet way, showcasing their respective languages with simple, pitch-perfect typographic overlays.

Holmqvist made great typeface choices in each of the films, but I think Paris got the best treatment. The opening title (see video above) is set in a very obvious Parisian, but it sets the tone so perfectly.

Patterned after the lettering of an American architect Neutraface isn’t necessarily French, but its quaint italic and deco-inspired lines certainly feel appropriate. Homqvist embellished the face in subsequent titles, adding decorative frames and shadows.

Like we’ve shown before, Brothers is a quintessential vintage sign font. Its chamfered corners are as at home on a baker’s storefront as they are on the butcher’s. For the French shop, though, Holmqvist employed the alternate set of Brothers with its charming kick of the ‘R’ and curved crossbars (see ‘A’).

Contorting type into a predetermined shape, especially with a curve, is a dangerous game. Many of us remember the horrors of Type Twister’s heyday. Professional hand lettering is the way to do this right. But if you’re going to do it with type, you can make distortions less obvious by keeping the curves gentle and using a font that draws less attention to the cap- and baseline. Here, the condensed Regency Gothic withstands the bends well.

Mr. Dafoe, one of the more lively scripts in Alejandro Paul’s Bluemlein Collection, reflects a vibrant produce market. This is how tomatoes were advertised — back when people could use a brush.

The Oscars air in two weeks. Four of the ten Best Picture nominees were promoted with Gotham, perhaps the successor to Trajan as the movie poster default — a torch passing that I gladly welcome. But this isn’t another post about typeface ubiquity. This is about the rule-breaking posters for “Black Swan” by UK firm La Boca.

If only actors, agents, and studios would let go of their inane photographic (star’s head must occupy 50% of poster) and typographic (star’s name must appear before all other names and be X inches high) requirements, we would see more posters like these — distinctive campaigns that are true to the films they represent.

Yes, “Black Swan” did get the obligatory mugshot treatment, but La Boca was allowed to sidestep conventions for their series of international teasers.

My favorite of the posters features Britannic, a Stephenson Blake design from 1901. This kind of high contrast, closed aperture, turn-of-the-century sans serif (like Radiant and Globe Gothic) is rarely used these days, especially in movie advertising. Even without the illustration, it takes the viewer to another place. Acier BAT, a Cassandre revival (see also Bifur), is similarly striking. Having not yet seen the film I can’t say if “Black Swan” relates to the Futurism movement, but this art transports you in a way that standard posters don’t.

The other star here is Mark Simonson’s Mostra, the most complete digital font interpretation of Italian Art Deco posters and advertising. Designed in 2001, Mostra was a caps-only face with a three styles of letters. In 2009 Simonson released Mostra Nuova which added a lowercase and OpenType functionality.

Looking to grace your wall with one of these beauties? Unfortunately, the full-size posters are not available for purchase, but Fox Searchlight is selling the art on hoodies and mouse pads. I hope they wise up soon and offer the work in its original state. It sounds like knockoff shops are already in the game.

See also: The Guardian Film Blog on the posters, ScreenFonts (Yves Peters’ monthly movie poster review)