Movie poster

Il n'y aura plus de nuit is a 75-minute documentary film directed by Eléonore Weber. It exclusively uses archival footage of U.S. military drones monitoring and attacking people against whom the United States is at war.

Images from helicopters in the theater of operations. The insatiable eye of the pilots scans the landscape. The men who are being targeted do not know that they are being targeted, they have not spotted where the threat is coming from. The intervention takes place before our eyes. The one who films is also the one who kills.

In this film we hear the conversation between a soldier directing the drone and one who decides whether to act or not. There is also a dialogue between the director and an army member who has to pilot a drone in order to realize this kind of imagery. It is accompanied by a text read by Nathalie Richard.

The film is aesthetically rich because of its use of drone images made with a thermal vision camera. The poster shows one of the images recorded by the drones, depicting inhabitants in their daily life. One of the most shocking moments is when the killer drone pilots start to look at life as if nothing was happening, forgetting who is threatening them. We realize that people are used to this kind of threatening surveillance, and we also realize the disconnection of the pilots from their mission.

A disturbed vision of reality that they feel through their thermal vision glasses and all the sights and movement indicators that are permanently active. A vision that is supposed to be the closest to reality to see everything, but that makes the images completely unreal.

A game of perception that we can feel in the logo of the film. The sans-serif caps are familiar and very readable, but bits of the letters were chopped off. A feeling evocative of the vision of the drone pilots who seem to be disconnected from reality. The font in use appears to be Acumin with some modifications (to the apostrophe and the N).

The title Il n’y aura plus de nuit (“There will be no more night”) refers to the advance of surveillance technology. An advance such that we can monitor both day and night.

Archive image used on the poster

Movie logo

KTF Rublena and EB Garamond used for the Daily Decisions webspace. From the About page:

Disarming Design was a temporary masters programme at the Sandberg Instituut that ran from 2020 to 2022. It was committed to design practices in situations of oppression acting on the overlap of design and politics, and positioned design as a cultural tool to foster disarming ways of knowing. […]

It features collaborative works by Lama Aloul, Saja Amro, Julina Vanille Bezold, Rasha Dakkak, Farah Fayyad, Mohamed Gaber, Anna Celda, Ayman Hassan, Siwar Kraitem, Ott Metusala, Naira Nigrelli, Karmel Sabri, Qusai Al Saify, Sarah Saleh, Mohammed Tatour, Jara van Teeffelen and Samira Vogel.

In questioning the term “Disarming Design” the group grappled with the act of naming, and made an extensive list of possible DD-translations, to interpret DD according to media and outlets. These terms are the base for this digital archive of collaborative works; where each DD-interpretation presents specific projects as a conversation starter for further collaborations.

The accompanying publication Durable Discussions presents life-making practices across objects, events, places, and habits. In research through writing, seventeen essays sense and transform the poetics and politics of the everyday, offering perspectives in thinking about art and design as emancipatory politics. (Onomatopee, 2022)

This webspace has been designed and developed by PING (Miquel Hérvas Gómez, Agustina Woodgate and Sascha Krischock), Nick Reilly, Sarah Saleh and Jara van Teeffelen.

No Somos Robots is Rob López’s naming practice. On its website (typeset completely in Dinamo’s Diatype) the names and taglines are the main actors in the show.

Strandbude Morak offers comfortable low-budget rooms, a beach for bathing and relaxing, and a top location in Velden, Austria with countless hot spots in the immediate vicinity to a rather younger target group.

Agentur Lux developed an upbeat and loud visual identity for Strandbude Morak, using bright colours and Farmacia by Nguyen Gobber in combination with Bourrasque 45 Ouest by Bureau Brut for the logo. The diagonally positioned “Strandbude” refers to the stairs that lead into the water. In addition to the aforementioned typefaces, the website uses Athletics from Family Type.

Visual identity for Carrément, a cycle of artist residence at a poetry house in Rennes, France. The identity is based on the use of image words, in the style of Magritte, to illustrate the process of each artist during the residence. The leaflet is printed in risography at Club Couleur in Rennes.

The typewriter face is Olympe, designed by Émilie Rigaud and released through her A is for foundry. The sans is Antoine Elsensohn’s EB Trainer Grotesk.

A poster by designer/collector Gielijn Escher (1945–) for an exhibition about “young Dutch art” at De Lakenhal in Leiden in 1968, screen printed by Levisson.

The typography is set in all-lowercase Helvetica. Note the lowered hyphens, used as dashes. This might be a reference to early computing. The use of underscores (as word separators) dates back to the late 1960s with the with the rise of computers and programming languages. This style of writing was later called Snake case, in which each space is replaced by an underscore _ and the first letter of each word was set in lowercase.

According to Idea Books, Gielijn Escher is the great-nephew of graphic artist M.C. Escher (1898–1972).

A lovely insert, enhanced by an elegant geometric design, for a no-name audio cassette from Germany. The typography relies on a Swiss/International approach, and leverages multiple weights of the Helvetica typeface to organize information. The tri-color palette has a neat muted blue, contrasted with the white of the paper stock, and a black.

A special note for the “Compact Cassette” visual mark, all stunning in its italicized goodness. This logo probably was custom drawn, and doesn’t use a font.

Via Bruce Jamieson’s collection of tape cassette inserts.

Maxeville is used for a catalog with works by Spanish artist Eloy Arribas. From Koln Studio:

Arribas approaches painting from emotions, spontaneous gestures and catharsis. The catalogue for his solo show at Herrero de Tejada gallery is built in an intuitive and improvised way, starting from a trip to Arribas’ hometown. It was there where is artworks were photographed in their own ecosystem, portraying Eloy’s world and translating his magical atmosphere into a book where the binding reminds of a school notebook.

Grocery delivery service Buyk describe their service as follows: “We have a wide variety of products and our couriers will deliver in the shortest time possible. It takes about 15 minutes for the delivery. Prices are set to be competitive with local stores and delivery is free.”

Their visual identity (designer yet unknown), pairs a vibrant pink/green color combo with equally loud typography set in a two weights of Right Grotesk. On the website, information is set in Plain.

Ad Hoc is a documentary film festival organized by a non-profit organization, taking place each summer in the small village of Mirabel-et-Blacons, France. The idea that gave ground to this event was to reunite professionals and amateurs of documentary cinema to discover a small selection (rarely more than 15) of documentary films realized by directors who show a particular political commitment. The only thing that rules the selection of films was for them not to have been broadcast on TV the year before. This setup leads to a cozy atmosphere, led by volunteers only, where everyone can meet and discuss the screenings, whether it’s during round tables or at the bar.

Even though the festival is small, Les Rencontres Ad Hoc still commissioned graphic design studio Brest Brest Brest to design their visual identity and specifically a poster for the 2019 edition. In order to evoke the diversity of the film selection designated by the committee as “off tracks”, Brest Brest Brest used the two opposite widths of Mars from Production Type. The type is also an interesting choice to harmonize the short name of the festival with the longer chunks of information present on the poster, so as to keep all main info on the same hierarchy level. The poster is offset printed in orange and black, with just a small image representing a woman with binoculars – a metaphor of the spectator as a discoverer of new horizons.

Detail

A guide for Seventh-Day Adventists struggling with the health craze of the mid-1970s. The importance of healthy habits is acknowledged, “but too much attention to health can be a form of idol (false god) worship that gets in the way of a satisfying relationship with God.”

Author J. Robert Spangler and designer Helcio Deslandes both worked for the magazine Ministry: International Journal for Clergy. The title is set in Sans Shaded and the authors’ names in Helvetica.

For the redesign of the visual identity of dance studio Chunky Move, Dinamo provided design studio M35 with a special “Ad Lib” version of ABC Monument Grotesk Ultra:

The CHUNKY MOVE identity is a digital and motion first brand system in which all elements are in a constant state of motion. Elements collide and intersect to create unexpected and engaging visual outcomes. As a result, the movement itself dictates the legibility of content; creating moments of chaos and moments of clarity and precision. The design system is set up in such a way that even print collateral also gives the impression of frozen moments of motion.

ABC Monument Grotesk Mono is used for information.

“We’re hiring” poster with pull tabs for clothing retailer Húrra Reykjavík. The text is set in Agipo by Radim Peško. See also the poster for Húrra’s streetball tournament.

Spechte am Meisenknödel (“Woodpeckers at the fat ball”) is a publication for the exhibition of the same name at Ernst Barlach Haus, Hamburg. It shows works by students of Elisabeth Wagner’s sculpture class at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel.

Hamburg-based designers Insa Kühlcke-Schmoldt and Nina Massow from Káschem Büro have designed the entire catalogue with just one typeface family: Sombra, from title and headline to the body text.
Their reflections on the design (translated from German)

When we were thinking about the catalogue “Spechte am Meisenknödel”, it was important to us to find a design that would fit the exhibition as well as the museum itself. So we tried to let the essence of the functionalist architecture of the Barlach House influence the concept of the overall appearance: through a simple structure, a clear design of the inside section, the calm and restrained colours.
We chose the Sombra as a counterbalance to this overall appearance of simplicity. Its proportions, based on a geometric structure, are reminiscent of the formal language of classic modern architecture. At the same time, the eye-catching graphic features (for example the hairline diacritics, a high stroke contrast, flourishing terminals and tapered details) bring a refreshing contrast to the layout.

The striking title set on the grey cover subtly reflects the irony and humour of the exhibition title. The exaggerated content of woodpeckers pecking at titmouse dumplings is underlined by the visual exaggeration inherent in the details of Sombra. The letters of Sombra Poster, for example, could in themselves represent sculptural objects. Sharply cut, pointed inner forms like pecking beaks, letters like expressionist Barlach sculptures.

Maison d'Orsay is a bicentennial French perfume house located in Paris, specialized in unisex perfumes that can be worn by couples. The story behind this particular position is that of Alfred d'Orsay, the creator of the firm. In the 1820s, Alfred d'Orsay falls madly in love with Marguerite Blessington, ten years younger than him and already married to another man. They live a secret passion and Alfred creates a fragrance that they both could wear, in remembrance of their lover. The perfume house was born. Through the years, the firm had many famous collaborators such as Jean Cocteau, Marie Laurencin, or Baccarat for their communication campaigns and the design of their bottles. Two hundred years later, the perfume house keeps this idea of high quality design for their creations with the direction of Amélie Huynh.

In 2019, d’Orsay opened a shop in the area of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. Called the “Bureau Postal d’Orsay”, this shop is an homage to the long written correspondence Alfred d’Orsay and his lover had.

The design of the shop’s identity was given to be-poles, who decided to take another stand on the branding. While the logotype of the perfume house d’Orsay is based on Univers 49, a compressed sans serif, the studio used quite the opposite for the Bureau Postal, that is Mars Extended from Production Type. This clear contrast between the two typefaces underlines the special status of the shop regarding the brand and its concept-store dimension. Plus, while Mars Extended has a radical contemporary design, the letters molded in golden metal give a somewhat Art Deco atmosphere to the shop – which evokes the long history of the brand.

From our interview with Polina Zagumenova, designer at Purpur, a brand for sex-positive products:

In our game about relationships people ask each other personal questions they find on the game’s cards — questions that you normally feel uncomfortable to simply start discussing out loud. I definitively realised that Transgender Grotesk would go well with this story when I read an interview with its author. As it turned out, the name was related to his psychological issues that were resolved during the work on the typeface — or even thanks to this work. And we also hope that our cards as well will help someone survive their emotionally challenging period.

Transgender Grotesk calmed graphics of illustrations, made it a bit less naïve. I fell in love with its lowercase glyphs, they are friendlier and gentler than uppercase. I also enjoyed the figures, though I didn’t use those for the game and decided to utilise an icon for indicating a marker for 2+ players.

Read the entire article on the type.today website.

Creative Director: Elena Zaharova
Brand Development: Anfisa Savchenko & Elena Zaharova
Graphic Design: Polina Zagumenova
Illustrations: Nastasiia Samokhina Photo: Lera BraunSet Design: Polina Zagumenova

Icarus XB1 — A revival of the Czech sci-fi magazine Ikaria.

Science fiction has a long tradition reaching back to the late 19th century. It is still relevant today in movies, series and contemporary culture. There is a new active generation of sci-fi geeks who live in the world of social media and digital communication.

The goal of this redesign project created as a student at UMPRUM was to make the rich sci-fi culture of the Czech Republic accessible and attractive to younger readers again. The magazine was changed to a smaller bookazine layout highlighting its exclusivity and value. In order to survive the contemporary bookmarket printed publications have to become objects of desire — objects worth collecting.

With focus on contemporary illustrations as a direct way of communicating to new generations of readers the magazine changed its appearance drastically. Also a high-contrast inktrap typeface was selected to create playful Dada-inspired spreads.

The font in use is Whyte Inktrap from Dinamo.

178 pages, 140×210 mm, 6 alternative covers. Self-published in a limited edition.

ReA! Art Fair draws inspiration from the original concept of the Biennale: a platform to celebrate emerging artists without a gallery or museum mediating the exchange between creators and their audience. Now in its second year, ReA! is pulling broadly from the current climate, attempting to showcase the “harmony” which can be created when cultural limitations are removed: an ergonomic society which is free of oppressive categorizations, one where a collection of narratives can emerge and exist together, without division. What separated the fair is the emphasis we place on artists and individual creators, not only their selected works.

The reason why the exhibition spans so many types of artworks, ranging from oil paintings to performing arts, is because we aim to change society’s point of view about the value of art. It isn’t just about collecting or decorating your home, but rather about creating a connection with the world as a political being where one begins to own, sustain and encourage ideas.

The catalog has been designed with the intention of highlighting each of the artwork presented, by using different layouts, variable and fluid. The typography goes all around one single font, Ekstra, by Good Type Foundry. Ekstra is a contemporary neo-grotesque typeface, versatile, with personality, and able to adapt to different editorial layout. It has been used in a single weight, the Regular, playing with text boxes and sizes.

Poster for Kunststipendien der Stadt Zürich (Art Stipends for the City of Zurich). Printed in a total of 23 print runs (yes, this was crazy!) with many helpers in my studio. Mainly laser-cut MDF and a bit of metal type.

Due to availability, the center line was hand-set in Helvetica breit fett in metal type, while the rest of the poster was digitally set, laser-cut and printed analog using Berthold Akzidenz-Grotesk Bold Extended. Can you combine Helvetica and Akzidenz Grotesk? —No problem!

Watch the video of the poster production below:

Huxley Vertical in alternating colors for the names of the eight authors whose short stories are included in Invasion of the Robots. The science fiction anthology was published by Paperback Library in 1969. Note the use of the two forms for K.

Released by ATF in 1935, Huxley Vertical is a condensed all-caps typeface with monolinear strokes, distinguished by the protruding bars that are so typical for the Art Deco period, see for instance Triennale, or later creations in this style, like Plaza, ITC Anna, Avenida, or Capitol Capitals. Huxley Vertical isn’t named after Aldous Huxley, of course, but after its designer, Walter Huxley (1890–1955). This didn’t stop Agfa/Monotype from naming their interpretation Aldous Vertical.

The other text including the title is set in Inserat-Grotesk. Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

[More info on ISFDB]