Meta Mascot and LL Riforma in use on the cover of Cute Accelerationism, published by Urbanomic:

Involuntarily sucked into the forcefield of Cute, Amy Ireland and Maya B. Kronic decided to let go, give in, let the demon ride them, and make an accelerationism out of it—only to realise that Cute opens a microcosmic gate onto the transcendental process of acceleration itself.

Some knitting, a wool ball, a skillful and focus monkey, here are the foundations of the new identity of “Le singe qui tricote” (“The knitting monkey”). With the help of Marion Hermet (a creator from Lyon) and illustrator Nono Ampuy, we thought about an identity which could renew the image of knitting and represent the studiousness necessary for crafting it. This relaxing, manual, and creative activity needs an identity which stimulate the desire to launch into it!

The monkey represents the creator comfortably snuggled up to shape her new creations. The rounded ball of wool serves as a body for the hidden monkey and emphasizes the importance of the ball of wool which is the raw material to realize multiple creations. The monkey tail is shown by a simple thread going out from the wool ball. The whole thing is sober and draws its inspiration from traditional Japanese elements like the seals (hanko/inkan), or the bow belts (taiko musubi/obi) in order to adapt later the content to various format.

To avoid the pitfall of typefaces classically used for knitting and to revisit its image, we have opted for a non-gender-oriented visual sense, and used two typefaces:

To give a new image to knitting and give it more character, we have chosen Viksjø by Monokrom. This typeface is mainly of architectural inspiration, but also includes a research directed towards bringing some round shapes to severe and stiff lines. By using it only for its’ warm and original shapes we take somehow the opposite view. To complete the identity and bring real comfort to the reading, I used a traditional Elzevir (a serif font), Spectral by Production Type, including characteristics which allow the typeface to be rendered perfectly in a website. The typeface is inspired from François Rabelais’s book The most horrific life of the great Gargantua, father of Pantagruel (1534).

Packaging for a Santa Claus outfit made by the Collegeville Flag & Mfg. Co. – maker of many costumes – some time after 1965 when the Davida typeface was released.

Cover for a 7″ vinyl single of the playful pop song “Happy Time”, with the similarly poppy “Clipper 404” as the B-side.

“Happy Time” was popularized in Germany in the 1960s from being played while lottery numbers were chosen from a lottery machine on TV – hence the design’s number jumble and shape of the glücksschwein (lucky pig).

While the pile of numerals looks random at first, there are a few cleverly placed glyphs to emulate pieces of the pig’s anatomy: a sideways 8 and 3 for a snout and eyes, respectively, rotated 7 for an ear, and a 6 for a curly tail.

For their boxed beauty kits Benefit always throws lots of fonts into the mix. Somehow they manage to get nice looking products out in the end, though. On the front side two retro fonts — Luxus Brut and Marlowe — form an Austrian rope team.

Nicho de Bichos is one of the oldest petshops in Rio. 20 years old this year, but brand spanking new with a new identity designed by Plau with the help of Fabio Corazza, an amazing illustrator from São Paulo.

The logotype is hand-lettering inspired by the multi-functional Neutra, which we used for the text.

Even though the illustration sets the retro-modern tone, the typeface Neutraface (as always) lends just the right touch for the communication and complements the illos ever so nicely.

On the store’s interior decor, we used Filmotype Brooklyn, adding a touch of casual/handmade to an otherwise geometric look.

“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

One of my favorite books, discovered as an adult, but wish I had as a child. From the jacket:

Suzanne Heller, whose first book this is, is a New Yorker born and bred, a Sunday painter, employed by a New York law firm — and someone who hasn't forgotten what it's like for kids.

Book design: Arouni (AKA Lynette Arouni Logan)
Publisher: Paul S. Eriksson, Inc

Burbank [rather Back Beat, see comments], Manicotti, and Candy Script are a pitch perfect trio to accompany Invisible Creature’s cutesweet illustration.

Dibevo is a trade association for the pet industry in The Netherlands.