The Field Meridians’ Observer is a printed, quarterly neighborhood newspaper highlighting local news and seasonal perspectives. Published at the turn of each season and distributed for free to the Crown Heights community, local neighborhood stockists include the Brower Park Library (155 Brooklyn Ave) and Another World (629 Nostrand Ave) and The Word is Change (368 Tompkins Ave). The first issue is tied to the winter solstice, including a warming soup recipe, a piece on the joy of winter birding, and a calendar of the season’s best activities. A digital copy of the first issue is available here.

Jordi Ng designed the newspaper, which is typeset in International Edition and HAL Repost. Céline Hurka created a customised masthead, drawing bespoke initials of the Repost caps spelling “OBSERVER”. The pictograms are taken from Noto Sans Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Noto Sans Symbols. The issue also features illustrations by Lillian Ansell, Thomas Colligan, and María Medem.

An entry with Egyptian hiero

Palisades Parks Conservancy tasked Order with creating a series of icons for Fort Lee Historic Park to illustrate the parks’ features to its many annual visitors.

Developed alongside a comprehensive signage system, the design takes inspiration from the park’s primary typeface, Interstate by Frere-Jones Type. Icons were constructed with legibility in mind, designed to communicate across a range of languages, scales, and applications.

Fort Lee Historic Park is a cliff-top park in Fort Lee, New Jersey, that features scenic overlooks of the George Washington Bridge and the Hudson River, along with a reconstructed 18th-century Revolutionary War encampment. It includes a Visitor Center with exhibits, reconstructed barracks, and batteries, and is situated on 33 acres of land that served as a key defensive position for General Washington’s army in 1776.

Design and Disability is a major exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London celebrating design for and by disabled people. Spanning DIY inventions, grassroots organising, and individual contributions from disabled, deaf, and neurodivergent practitioners, it showcases the shaping of social change from the 1940s to the present day.

In keeping with this ethos, the exhibition offers a wide range of accessibility features, including a British Sign Language (BSL) video tour, an audio tour, audio descriptions and a dedicated Braille guide. The exhibition captions are written in short, accessible sentences and set in Zed Text Semi-Wide and Zed Icons. Section titles are shown in CirrusCumulus.

Zed Text was developed and tested in collaboration with visually impaired readers to ensure optimal legibility, with inclusivity at its core. Zed Icons, a companion typeface, provides over two thousand symbols designed to transcend language barriers. The accompanying Braille guide is also set in Zed Text and incorporates Braille characters informed by research into tactile readability.

Golden is a talent consultancy for the creative and marketing industries, connecting brilliant people with roles at culture-conscious companies. Founded by Kate, who brings deep industry knowledge and a belief that work should feel better, Golden is on a mission to make working life more meaningful.

OHMY built a brand and website around the idea of making life golden, a visual expression of what it feels like to find the right fit. Illustrated worlds, warm colours, and playful details create a sense of joy and optimism, while the website itself guides people with clarity and care.

Typography plays a big role here. The wordmark uses a customised version of Neurath by René Bieder: beautifully open letterforms, full of character, especially in heavier weights. It feels approachable, the typographic equivalent of a kind face. We extended its use to titles for the same reason. For body copy, we paired Neurath with Faculty Glyphic, designed by Koto and freely available on Google Fonts, which brings just the right amount of character while balancing nicely with Neurath.

The result is a distinct and uplifting identity that reflects Golden’s purpose: helping people thrive by making the world of work feel brighter, fairer, and full of potential.

Oltre cares to become a reference for those who want to put change, personal growth, overcoming difficulties related to emotional suffering and wellbeing at the center of their lives.

In a market where psychotherapy offerings are increasingly being positioned in terms of accessibility, Oltre positions itself in the opposite vertex, formulating the best possible path to their clients.

The developed visual imagery consists of a color palette with hues of blues, inspired from the interiors of the space, complemented by a serif/sans serif typography using Hedvig Letters Serif and Sans by Kanon Foundry. To reflect the nature of their offering, an ample amount of whitespace is used as a key design element across all communication

Web development by Filippo Buresta. Made in collaboration with Studio MOST.

1. FC Köln is one of Germany’s most traditional football clubs. Since its founding in 1948, the club has proudly represented the city in national and international competitions. The club’s identity is deeply rooted in the city and plays a key role as an integral part of Cologne’s cultural heritage and community development.

A core element of the new design by local design company NOCHNE.gmbh is the choice of the variable typeface EK Modena, referencing the architectural style of the club’s stadiums. From the old, historic Müngersdorfer Stadion to today’s RheinEnergieStadion, it provides the foundation for shaping 1. FC Köln’s modern communications.

I created a custom version of Modena named Modena 1948, with a few additions to its character set. With 35 font styles, Modena 1948 covers a large portion of the design space of the superfamily.

The use of the typography is inspired by the power and strength of fan banners in the stadium. At the same time, the highly versatile variable typeface offers ideal conditions for communicating not only loudly, but also subtly, across various channels and into office and business contexts.

Desktop, web detail page, desktop / mobile

Graphic design studio Claudia Eggimann created a self-initiated project to raise awareness and enhance joy in eating despite allergies, cross-reactions, intolerances and food issues. happybelly is a collection of self-created and tested recipes and a sharing of experiences – all vegan, gluten free & towards sattvic.

The branding is sweet, playful still graphical with a modern twist. It addresses affected kids and adults who can't contribute to “normal” food culture and have to stick to a strict diet.

The main focus lays on a website, designed and programmed in-house with Cargo. With bold titles, set in Syne, photographs made out of the blue, portraying homemade dishes and clean lines in a readable font. The design allows for some small surprises, like tilted, floating photographs and animated icons. The latter are from the IKONEN font that was designed during the Corona pandemic when the world was locked down.

There is also a social media channel in construction and physical advertising like flyers. As also more to come.

Desktop, web entry page / A6 flyer

Desktop, web entry page, mobile / desktop

Advertising sign / Desktop, web detail page

Branding agency Chapoo from Antwerp created the identity for the joint venture between Umicore and Volkswagen’s battery maker PowerCo. The corporate identity makes heavy use of the typeface Purple Haze by Font Spectrum, adding some custom icons and animations to the variable font.

The logotype of ionway is a mixture of a Purple Haze-like i with the rest of the word set in FF Mark Heavy by Hannes van Döhren and Christoph Koeberlin. FF Mark also does the heavy lifting in print materials. On the ionway website, however, the typeface has been replaced with Open Sans, while Purple Haze is used for titles. Readers can speculate themselves why this might be the case.

The typeface creates a futuristic look that fits the scientific and progressive targets of electrifying our private and public transport systems. The name “ionway” is a combination of the raw battery material and the company’s end goal: thanks to high-performance lithium-ion batteries, travelling with significantly lower CO₂ emissions.

Annual report for 2023 with a festive cover featuring Purple Haze

Custom animated icons, made by the Antwerp based branding agency Chapoo

The logotype with an i built from intersecting circles similar to the ones in Purple Haze. The rest is set in FF Mark Heavy.

Construction sketch for the logo

An overview of the brand guidelines

Midnight:AM is a creative agency based in NYC that “provides highly curated talent, recruitment and payment services”. The website, designed by Bruno Café and developed by Dima Kantalinsky, uses solely TWK Everett by Nolan Paparelli, with a modified A for the wordmark.

Intro header

Phosphor Icons is an icon library that can be used everywhere from UI design to presentations. Icons are designed by Helena Zhang, while the website is made by Tobias Fried.

The majority of the website uses Manrope, while the code and tags are set to IBM Plex Mono. Both typefaces are freely available on Google Fonts.

Closeup of one of the illustrations in the website, with the text set to Manrope

Another closeup of one of the illustrations in the website when it’s hovered. The labels pointing to the icons are also set to Manrope.

The main section of the icons, with the labels and the toolbar set to Manrope

A pop-up showing the icon’s detail. Most of the pop-up is set to Manrope, but the tags and code are set to IBM Plex Mono.

Footer

TilburgsAns is a typeface inspired by the city of Tilburg, the Netherlands. It not only contains letters, but also a set of 123 icons picturing the local heritage as buildings, stories, events and dialect words. These icons are applied by the TextielMuseum Tilburg in woven fabric. The resulting textiles are sold in the museum shop. The first product in which this TilburgsAns textile was used is an iconic handbag.

Wellhub, formerly known as Gympass, is a start-up / service / app originally giving access to multiple gym clubs for a unique subscription. To quote the Financial Times article dedicated to the change of name and rebranding:

Corporate wellness platform Gympass is rebranding as part of preparations for an initial public offering, after being valued at $2.4bn with backers including SoftBank and EQT.

The start-up said the change of name to Wellhub reflected its widening range of services, which alongside access to tens of thousands of third-party fitness centres also included partner apps for activities like sleep, meditation and diet.

The rebrand is also showcased in an introductory video, offering a glimpse into Wellhub’s new identity and vision. It comes with the obvious new logo featuring a twirly icon and a nameplate in an unidentified, most likely modified type, maybe even a custom lettering. It’s a wider grotesque with slightly rounded inside corners, echoing the roundness of the twirl symbol and symptomatic of the 2020s “nice/human” era of the startup/branding landscape.

For all headlines, Wellhub went with NaN Holo in its condensed and narrow styles, often on the bolder side of the weight range. Holo’s rounded details (see the tittles of i j or the shoulder of r) recall the roundness already present in both the icon and wordmark, as well as in the rounded corners of rectangular shapes.

But for all text sizes, UI elements and interfaces, the Wellhub team chose familiarity with the use of the now ubiquitous Inter, while Holo's standard widths would have offered similar proportions and legibility. Was this choice motivated by a desire to save on webfont weights, or more by a conformist spirit regarding text typefaces on the web? We don’t know.

I designed a website for showcasing quotes from various writers—past and present. The typefaces used on the website are Aesthet Nova for headings by The Northern Block, and Crimson Text for everything else by Sebastian Kosch. Button labels are in tracked caps from Open Sans.

The unique approach of the website’s typography is that it relies on justifying and hyphenating paragraphs—something that’s rarely used in web experiences, but often appreciated in book design.

The Zenpen project began in October 2024, but the idea was bubbling up many months before. From the website’s About page:

In this age of forgetfulness, Zenpen’s mission is to unearth valuable quotes of wisdom and knowledge and honour those who have contributed something genuine through written or spoken words.

The Preview SeongSu is an annual art fair held in Seoul, South Korea. Their visual identity was designed by NYC based Jun Ki Hong. From his case study:

Since its debut in 2021, The Preview Seongsu has been at the forefront of the evolving art market, reflecting the shifts driven by a new generation of artists, collectors, and galleries. This year’s showcase is more dynamic and enriched, featuring galleries and artists who have grown with the fair and are poised to continue evolving in the future.

With the theme Together We Grow, growth is visually expressed through a variable format, where the repetition of circular forms echoes like rhythmic chants. Bespoke Korean lettering and unique glyphs add depth to the display typography, creating a sense of harmony and contrast. The vibrant color palette energizes the identity system, amplifying a visual narrative that draws viewers in, inviting them to engage with the interplay of form and meaning.

While version 0.5 of Purple Haze introduced icons like the four-leaf clover, manicules, smiling face, and heart, the designer expanded the symbol set even further. Additionally, the necessary Hangul characters were created. (Attention: there is no Hangul in the retail version of Purple Haze). The animation of these new glyphs deviates from Purple Haze’s style, instead forming dot by dot. Another modification to the existing font is the replacement of the periods and eyes of the smiling face with a single black dot. Supporting text is set in Documan (Latin) and TlabModernRound (Hangul).

Hosted by ShinhanCard
Organized by ARTMEETSLIFE(AML)
Design by Jun Ki Hong (jun.works)
Photography by Fall Min Studio, Dan Ah Studio

In this booklet, information is set in Helvetica and Yeolrin Gothic.

Studio Joost Grootens, the Dutch studio specialized in book design, worked on the new Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Masterpieces, written by Dominic Bradbury and published by Phaidon in October 2024. They used Octave, the latest sans serif designed by Josh Finklea and distributed by Sharp Type, on the cover and the texts inside. The icons used underneath each entry (name of the building, architect and location) come from Studio Joost Grootens’s own Ceremony, available from Optimo.

Here is the description of the book content:

Featuring 450 of the very best works of Mid-Century Modern architecture from every continent, the Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Masterpieces showcases how the architects of the time harnessed the post-war boom and increasing globalization to create forward-thinking designs on a grander scale.

From embassies and office blocks to entertainments spaces and transport hubs, glamorous designs by such icons as Arne Jacobsen, Mies, Le Corbusier, Eero Saarinen, Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer, Frank Lloyd-Wright, and Oscar Niemeyer are each illustrated with stunning photography.

This stylish hardcover book showcases buildings from every continent, from classic North American skyscrapers and European masterpieces to modest churches in Africa, and iconic swimming pools in Australia and is a must-have for all design and architecture aficionados.

Icons for ZOO: a bakery, café, bookshop, and illustration gallery in Bologna. They asked for a bold but cute logo that would incorporate all of the functions of their space.

Olivita’s texture matches the illustration lines quite nicely, and its quirkiness goes hand in hand with the hilarious baker characters.

Exdatis is an AI startup that develops solutions for making data accessible using artificial intelligence. The Dresden-based company is specialised in AI-supported searches in complex data structures such as product catalogs in online shops. Exdatis also offers workshops for professionals on AI use.

Berlin-based type and design studio Ligature Type developed the new company’s visual identity. Ligature Type says:

The most important goal was to transport a feeling of accessibility – the whole design had to be friendly, open, rational and easy to understand.
The logo ended up being quite simple. The x-shape turned out to be suitable for playful use while developing patterns as an abstract depiction of data structures. Finding appropriate colours that were vibrant but adult was also an important step in the process.
The colours and patterns were key for transporting the identity into print.

Deciding on the right font turned out to be more difficult than expected. In our concept, type was supposed to play a very important role. But there was simply no font that conveyed exactly what we had in mind: an ultra friendly typeface with warm and sophisticated details. So we suggested designing our own font including a specific icon set for the project.

The developed font Cambio Grotesk radiates a rational feeling, but upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that the proportions are not cool, technical or over-pragmatic, but rather unique and friendly. Subtle playful details and a few individual shapes give the font character. Cambio appears tidy, human, confident and optimistic. In the regular cut it is easy to read, especially on the screen, and in the extreme cuts (light and black) it has headline-qualities. This makes the font an ideal companion for an evolving business.

Ligature Type later continued working on the typeface. It was licensed with the TypeMates in 2023 under the name Easy Grotesk.

Tablet view of the website

The developed custom typeface, later licensed as Easy Grotesk

Businesses that managed to grow during the pandemic were few and far between, but Prism was one of them. In-person events transitioned into videos, short films, and animations that could be shared extensively, enabling Prism to adapt, diversify its offerings, and ultimately thrive during a challenging period. From pencil to pixel and concept to creation, Prism can do the lot and riding the crest of a wave made for the best time to refocus its visual identity.

Redrawn logotype for the RTA, lines referencing the spatial logic of the letterforms

The Regional Transportation Authority is responsible for coordinating the Chicago region’s transit system, including overseeing financing and planning together with the three major transit operators: CTA, Metra, and Pace. Span was invited to refresh the brand identity for the organization in advance of announcing the RTA’s next strategic plan — a multi-year vision of how to achieve a safe, reliable, accessible public transportation that connects people to opportunity, advances equity, and combats climate change.

Span’s new brand reflects the agency’s focus on accountability, transparency, independence, and equity — four important goals identified during five separate workshops with stakeholder teams.

The logo is a solid monogram reflecting speed and strength with an ”overline” running through the characters like a train or bus pulling into the station. The typography is a customized version of Graphik by Commercial Type, a hard-working sans serif typeface selected for maximum recognition, with modified r, t, and a characters, to better align with the visual language of the logo itself. The color palette is focused, using combinations that are ADA-compliant up to level AA+. Illustrative transit paths as well as an icon suite add additional visual expressions to represent all aspects of life around transit.

The logotype’s overline informed a pattern language that references transit routes, these went on to be used across the collateral items. These lines and curves also guided Span’s design of a custom icon library that reflects all aspects of transit throughout the region.

Infographic styles were designed for accessibility and clarity.

Social media templates

Christian Schwartz of Commercial Type customized the sans-serif typeface Graphik for Span and the RTA to better align with the form of the RTA monogram.

In the spring of 2021, student Diana Zinchenko designed a program and playbill for the Obraztsov Puppet Theatre, which was quite diffferent from their existing visual identity. The booklet titles and calendar grid of the bill are set in Karloff Negative and Karloff Neutral by Typotheque.

From Diana’s Behance presentation (auto-translated from Russian):

The number of pages is calculated in such a way that on each page it is possible to place a poster of 1 day, and as a result through the whole book (92 pages) there is a poster of the theater from April to June.

The book includes not only the program for three months, Obraztsov's biography and the history of the theater itself, but also a directory of theatrical terms and addresses of Moscow theaters.