Front cover of the design research edition

Habiter l’entre-deux (“Inhabiting the In-Between”) is the name of my Master’s thesis in social and ethical design at Campus Fonderie de l’Image in Bagnolet, France.

Between Morocco and France, this project is rooted in a personal and familial history that echoes the broader historical and social context of North African immigration to France in the 1970s.

Through visual research, this written work brings contemporary practices into dialogue with colonial legacies, highlighting how art and design can serve as tools for cultural emancipation and visibility within experiences of exile and migration in France.

Drawing on the writings of Frantz Fanon and Édouard Glissant, the thesis explores the possibility of a relational and situated Afro-diasporic design practice. It asks: how can two cultures be brought into dialogue?

Situated at the intersection of multiple disciplines history, sociology, psychology, ethnology, and sensitive family archives this research lays the groundwork for a future collaboration with Transplantation, a Paris-based socio-cultural association, art gallery, and documentary archive, as part of the final diploma project.

Research and writing support by Loan Grac. Featured artists, researchers, and designers include Françoise Vergès, Chimurenga Chronic, Ahomé Studio, Maya Inès Touam, Babelfont
Akakir Studio, Syncretical, Atelier Eddy Terki, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Transplantation Project
Appartement 101, Kmar Douagi, Uncivilized Collective, Hannah Puzenat, Mohamed Bourouissa, Kawthar Bina, Douce Dibondo, Lydia Matiegous Keita, and Kawtar Bihya.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is an online action role-playing video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, released on March 1st of 2019. Set seven months after a deadly virus had ravaged the world in an alternate near-future, you play as a Division agent – recently stationed in Washington, D.C., in order to reboot the Division's network, ISAC, and restore law and order within the city.

Returning from the first game, The Division 2 largely uses Borda Regular, Demi-Bold and Bold for its user interface which remained more or less the same with some additional expansions and refinement to the design to fit the game’s larger amount of content. Noto Sans is used for the chat window and Helvetica continues to be used for the game’s logo.

The Division 2 logo, using Helvetica

Main menu

Settings menu

Standing in front of the White House, which is the main hub of the game. Just like the first game, The Division 2 uses a mixture of 2D and 3D HUD elements that are projected onto the world.

Testing out a gun in the shooting range

The map of Washington, D.C.

Inventory screen

“歩む” (“Movin’ On”) is the third song by Indonesian J-Pop alternative rock music group Thousand Sunny, released on 14 November 2025 with video clip animation done by Pedro Musa (Senimator Studio). Japanese lyrics on this video clip use the Japanese rounded sans-serif (Gothic) typeface Kiwi Maru by Moji-Waku Research while Indonesian and Japanese (Romaji) lyrics are in Noto Sans.

The official South African website of the global manufacturing corporation BIC rises above and sets an example for its peer localisation sites with pristine crisp photography, pixel-perfect web layout elements, and a strong branding implementation including its typography.

BIC South Africa’s main landing page falls on a welcoming image displaying an array of pens, stationary lighters and razors, with a BIC mascot, logo, and title message set in CJ Type’s Dunbar Tall in ExtraBold style. The sleek and sharp lettershapes of Dunbar reflect the utilitarian simplicity and efficiency of BIC’s products with a hint of quirk such as the lighter buttons or the Dunbar letter e.

Dunbar is consistently applied through headings and product category landing page titles with the body paragraphs set in Julieta Ulanovsky’s Montserrat in a mix of its Medium and Regular weights. The website menus are set in Montserrat Regular and Bold styles.

Interestingly, upon entering the shopping pages, the website defaults all its fonts including the menus, headers and body text to Impallari Type’s Dosis typeface. Other localised sites of BIC default to Noto Sans, however several of these websites currently land on a “coming soon” page.

CJ Type’s founder shared that “they licensed Cyrillic in addition to Latin” and “they requested Kazakh glyphs” – possibly for future localized uses on the webpages for Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine.

The CSR pen donation initiative page uses Avenir and the handwriting font Journal in addition to the Dunbar and Montserrat brand fonts.

Shop pages maintain Dunbar in lighter weight for page title, however default to Dosis for menus, headers, buttons, and paragraphs.

Shop pages maintain Dunbar in lighter weight for page title, however default to Dosis for menus, headers, buttons, and paragraphs.

Branding from South African localized site rolled out to social media graphics

Cannon is Lee Lai’s follow up to the Lamda Award winning graphic novel Stone Fruit. The title and author’s name on both the cover and the spine are typeset in Velzyland. On the cover, the wavy letterforms of Velzyland pair nicely with the rhythmic bird feather motif. And the angled baseline on the cover works especially well with Velzyland’s extreme slant of 25 degrees. On the spine, “CANNON” is stacked vertically alternating from red to black, further echoing Velzyland’s wavy rhythmic effect, and it’s sandwiched between the author’s name and the publisher name, D+Q, shorthand for Drawn & Quarterly. All of the type appears to be hand-rendered, as evidenced by the organic edge details which are not in the typeface, though the spacing is consistent with the typeface.

The poster for the tour with Tom Gauld and Mimi Pond uses Noto Sans.

Dongtan Station Art Station_MARS 151 is an art project that imagines a journey from Hwaseong, a city on Earth, to Mars, a planet in the universe. Through this journey, visitors are invited to envision a sustainable future through art.

In Korean, the name of the city Hwaseong (화성) refers both to the city where Dongtan Station is located and the planet Mars. This shared pronunciation creates a poetic link between reality and imagination.

The number 151 refers to Dongtan Station’s address (151 Dongtan-yeok-ro), a major transportation hub, while MARS symbolises an alternative planet envisioned by humanity.

Over three weeks of exhibitions, performances, lectures, and children’s workshops, Dongtan Station was transformed into the boarding platform of the Eco Spaceship MARS 151.

The project’s visual identity, designed by studio moonanhan, features a dynamic key image that conveys a sense of motion through time and space. The accompanying poster series combines tactile visual textures that invite multiple interpretations in line with the exhibition’s concept. Recognising the symbolic importance of Dongtan Station within the project, the design also visually emphasises B4, Dongtan Station.

For the main title, Hofmann by Nguyen Gobber was selected for its bold, futuristic character. The fluid curves of these Latin letters are contrasted by the rather straight geometric lines of the figures, which are set in Slight Chance by David Jonathan Ross. Dates are set in PF Expo by Parachute Type Foundry, and all Korean text was set in Noto Sans KR by Sandoll, and Pretendard by Hyung-jin Kil.

The built environment ranges in scale from a wooden step stool to a vast urban landscape. scale journal is a publication bridging various disciplines at Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) interested in the built environment. Promoting writing and projects that explore belonging and space, scale journal amplifies underrepresented voices in both academic and lived experience.

From the editors’ note for Issue 01:

This first issue’s theme is Lapis. We have traced this stone’s material history for you from a 21st century examination of a 10th century nun’s dental plaque to the craft traditions of 16th century artisans in the Mughal Empire to the first ever recorded mining practices of the ore from 7000 BCE in present-day Afghanistan. Lapis’s fragmented identity has helped us inform our own multi-dimensional nature. Depending on your perspective, it tells the story of material as ornamentation, material as structure, material as movement, or material as a medium of writing itself. It also explains how we view the built environment: from its original environmental contexts to a historic layering of stories to the re-excavation of such stories in order to discover how we can walk into the future.

The journal was designed by Andrea Mato and Isabel Lee and typeset in Indivisible Variable, Noto Sans, and Truth.

Editor-in-Chief: Henry Ding
Managing Editors: Ram Charan, Roy Kim, and Hannah Oh
Editors: Simone Klein, Oliver McGovern, Zorka Zsembery
Writers: Siya Girdhar, and Jin Xu

The logo appears to be custom. High Speed is similar.

Counter-Strike 2 is a tactical first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve. Released on September 27, 2023, it is the fifth entry in the Counter-Strike series acting as a complete replacement to its predecessor, CS:GO (2012). Counter-Strike 2 fully embraces the stylized realism first introduced in the later years of CS:GO, all while still keeping its military roots.

First used in CS:GO, Stratum 2 returns as the main typeface for Counter-Strike 2’s branding and user interface. Its boxy, geometric appearance fits both its military theme and its stronger emphasis on a stylized almost sports-like aesthetic, being one of the flagship title for the e-sports scene. Counter-Strike 2 also debuts with Stratum 2 Condensed, used mainly on headlines and generally big text. As far as I know this is the first ever usage of the typeface, predating its retail release by almost a year.

Longer or miscellaneous text and languages that aren't in Latin or Cyrillic are set in Noto Sans. Interestingly, what seems to be a monospaced version of Stratum 2 is used exclusively for the game's debug console. It is not officially released by Process Type Foundry as of the time of writing.

Main menu/lobby. Currently running events and items on sale are shown on the left, other features at the top and the friends list to the right. The top bar uses Stratum 2 Condensed for its text and is notably one of the few UI elements to use some sort of topographical pattern.

Loading into a match of Hostage Rescue

In-game HUD

Winning a match

My lackluster inventory. While hard to see unless zoomed in, most of the UI's backgrounds use a checkered pattern.

Inspecting a skin

When players receive a new item, they are shown this pop-up screen when entering the inventory. Stratum 2 Condensed is used here for the top text and the Continue prompt.

The mysterious monospaced version of Stratum 2 used for the console and the FPS counter

The news section. Pretty self explanatory though frankly Valve could make the text somewhat bigger here.

Jappan is a bilingual food guide app that explores the full range of Japanese cuisine—from street food to fine dining—across cities in Japan and Switzerland. The app’s design draws from shared principles of Swiss and Japanese aesthetics: clarity, reduction, and precision.

Typography plays a key role in balancing cultures. The interface pairs the sans-serif Futter Grotesk by Upset (customised for this project) with Noto Sans for Japanese. Both share a similar weight and rhythm, creating a seamless reading experience across scripts. The absence of icons and subtle UI gestures—like blurred text that sharpens on tap—support an understated, tactile user experience.

The app design and concept were made by Seto Studio, and the development by Milk Interactive.

Initially released as Hitman 3 (2021) and rebranded in 2023, Hitman: World of Assassination is a stealth game and the eighth entry in the namesake’s franchise. You play as a contract killer named Agent 47. Hired by the ICA, you are tasked with assassinating multiple targets across the globe.

A guilty pleasure of mine, this game includes one of my favourite user interfaces of any game. It is highly minimal yet professionally done with a purpose, as a professional like Agent 47 needs only the most necessary information conveyed clearly to execute his job.

Much of the user interface is set in Neue Haas Grotesk, a perfect font that I can see 47 liking. This extends to all of Hitman’s visual branding since the 2016 reboot, where it first introduced this style of UI. Noto Sans makes a peculiar appearance, used on numbered elements and as the primary font for when non-Latin languages are selected.

Official logo

Main menu

Preparing for a mission

Every briefing cutscene ends with a list of the targets and a “Mission Active” card

Most cutscenes often end with the name of the targets and a “Mission Active” card, signaling 47 to start

Agent 47 in his natural habitat

Completing a mission. Noto Sans is used for Mission Time.

Even in the credits IO Interactive gives it some distinct flair. Noto Sans is used here as well.

Settings screen

Player profile. Noto Sans is used on the experience points.

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 performance "Los Idiomas" by Alessandra García explores how language shapes our perception of the world and our relationships. Alessandra reflects on oral, physical, and emotional languages and how these forms of expression can either connect or separate us.

What makes this piece unique is that Alessandra doesn’t speak any language. This absence emphasizes the universality of the body and emotions as tools for communication. Through her intonation, movements, and non-verbal communication, the actress becomes the language itself, speaking them all without knowing a single word, turning limitation into strength.

The staging takes place in an intimate space where Alessandra uses words without understanding any language, accompanied by bodily movements that invite the audience to question how language defines our identity.

For the visual identity, we translated the sonority of languages into typography. Using Formula Condensed for the headline “Los Idiomas,” we displaced the sheet during the scanning process, creating a wordmark that reflects vibration and movement, in harmony with the essence of the performance. For the residual information, we used Neue Montreal and Noto Sans (for the Japanese and Arabic parts).

Slave King: Rebels Against Empire is a novel about a slave uprising in Sicily, circa 140–132 BCE, seven decades prior to the better known Spartacus rebellion. Younis, born in the area now known as Syria, is brought to Sicily as a slave, became a tutor to wealthy children, then forged a coalition of slaves, farmers and herders that defeated Roman armies and established a more egalitarian polity for a time.

Cover art by Mustafa El Hallaj

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022) is the nineteenth installment in the Call of Duty series, being another reboot and the sequel to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). Unlike the first reboot, Modern Warfare 2 references the original trilogy’s aesthetics in its visual design with bright greens and a return to squared sans-serifs, all while still keeping the contemporary look first established in Modern Warfare (2019).

This is the last entry to feature Call of Duty’s old franchise logo in Impact, this time without any modifications to the typeface. Eurostile Extended Bold is used with wider spacing.

Stratum 2 is the primary user interface font used on most text, big and small. It is complemented with DIN Next Condensed as the secondary typeface, used more inconspicuously and mainly on short text. Blender appears only in the form of computer text, such as when viewing through the camera of an airplane. Futura, similar to the first game, is used for massive introductory text in cutscenes. Last but not least there’s Noto Sans, mainly used for multilingual purposes.

Game logo

Campaign level select. Stratum 2 is used quite liberally here. DIN Next can also be seen here.

The iconic title card at the start of every mission, set in Stratum 2

A typical situation in campaign mode. Note the usage of Noto Sans specifically used for the button prompts.

Blender used on the terminal UI. Stratum 2 is also used, albeit minimally.

Futura Book used in the start of Chapter 5

Multiplayer select screen

Modifying a weapon

Beginning of a Search and Destroy match

Winning a round in Search and Destroy. DIN Next is used for the numbers and team names.

From Wikipedia:

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a 2024 first-person shooter video game co-developed by Treyarch and Raven Software and published by Activision. It is the twenty-first installment of the Call of Duty series […] Black Ops 6’s single-player story follows rogue CIA operatives Troy Marshall and Frank Woods as they assemble a team of agents to hunt down Pantheon, a paramilitary group with covert ties to the agency.

Black Ops 6 continues the age-old tradition in military shooters: it must use squared sans-serifs no matter what. And this game more than kept its end of the bargain. Kairos Sans Condensed is featured throughout the game’s UI, mainly on big headings and small, less important text. TT Lakes Neue and its Condensed variant are mainly used on long body text, where Kairos Sans could be a bit too angular for readability.

Subtitles are set in Monospace 821 Bold, evoking the feeling of reading a transcript – very fitting for the “off the books” nature of the Black Ops games. Helvetica itself is also used, but is reserved for numbered elements. The venerable Noto Sans returns, used on the scoreboard and player names for full language converage. Stratum 2 makes a surprise appearance, but only in the campaign’s pre-rendered cutscenes.

Game logo

Main menu

Mission select screen on the campaign mode

A cutscene that happens early in the game. Stratum 2 is seen here.

Multiplayer lobby

Modfiying a weapon. Monospace 821 is used on gun statistics.

Every now and then, the game gives you multiple dialogue choices. The last line of dialogue is set in the regular width of TT Lakes Neue, while the buttons use the Condensed width.

Admiring a beautiful shotgun. The campaign uses a different HUD from the online modes. Button prompts (bottom right) appear to be set in Noto Sans, while the rest is in Kairos Sans.

The start of a Team Deathmatch mode. Helvetica can be spotted on the bottom right, used for the ammo counter. The monospaced version – Bitstream’s Monospace 821 – also appears here in subtitle form.

Scoreboard

Tasting sweet victory in the form of a very large Kairos Sans

Barely surviving in Zombies mode. The HUD appears virtually the same as other online modes. Note that Helvetica is used on the score numbers, while Noto Sans on the described kills.

Flyer and poster design by Dennis Moya Razafimandimby for the collaborative exhibition CASA家, conducted in Geneva, Switzerland, in June 2024. It's a project by the Swiss photographers Pascal Greco and Gabriel Mauron.

Their two photographic series ‘Kwai Shing West Estate’ and ‘Homes on Hold’ use the prism of architecture to highlight the subtle and changing relationships between humans and their environment, in particular the fundamental and universal need for housing. An architectural connection between southern Italy (Salento) and Hong Kong through two distinct photographic projects.

The variable typeface Crystal from Newglyph and Noto Sans (Simplified Chinese) are in use.

Modern Warfare 2019 serves as the reboot to Call of Duty’s Modern Warfare trilogy, updating the series to fit modern sensibilities. This included the user interface where Nat Dart, the Senior UI artist at Infinity Ward along with the rest of the UI team opted to shave off the original’s dated militaristic look for a cleaner, more readable appearance that retained a sleek military reference. This was achieved by utilising multiple colors, transparencies, soft gradients, checkered patterns, and of course, clean typography.

Until the release of Modern Warfare 3 (2023), Impact was used for the series’ logo, with minor alterations. Considering that the franchise started in 2003, that’s 20 years of Impact. As if we didn’t have enough Impact from 2010 memes, but I don’t mind. A modified Eurostile Extended Bold with an upside-down W as M is used for the “Modern Warfare” text in the game’s logo.

Bio Sans Bold, Regular and Light are used for much of the user interface. This includes big text as well as smaller things like subtitles. Noto Sans Semi Condensed Bold is then used for the scoreboard, player banners, and chat window. This is likely for multilingual purposes to cover languages that Bio Sans doesn’t cover. OCR-B is rarely used on decorative or computer terminal text. Futura in massive text is used only as introductory text in cutscenes. Helvetica similarly is used as the subtitle text in cutscenes.

Curiously, ITC Conduit makes a return and is sporadically used in small amounts. The Regular weight is used. This is the first time ITC Conduit was used since the original Modern Warfare 3 (2011). It could just be a subtle throwback to the original trilogy for all I know.

Game logo

Main menu for the multiplayer mode, the checkered pattern can be seen on the left buttons

Previewing a skin

Deploying in Warzone, Call of Duty’s take on the Battle Royale genre. In the loading screen, Bio Sans is used plentiful here for both big and small text

Landing in Verdansk, OCR-B is used for the compass above

Winning 3rd place in Warzone. Noto Sans can be seen on the bottom right for the chat window

Modifying a gun. Note ITC Conduit being used here for the gun statistics.

Unlocking a new weapon

Pause menu. Bio Sans and ITC Conduit are both used here. Noto Sans is seen below.

Scoreboard. Noto Sans is used here.

Futura used in the start of the first chapter

Helvetica used in the earlier cutscenes

For W Magazine’s “The Music Issue”, Jose Berrio created “album covers inspired by the music of four different hit shows: Atlanta, Yellow Jackets, Bridgerton and Euphoria.” The Atlanta title is set in Dida, with caps from Platform for “Soundtrack”. The “Parental Advisory” sticker uses Garage Gothic. Yellow Jackets is an homage to Prodigy’s Fat On The Land album cover, complete with outlined Keedy Sans. The “Warning” sticker on the Euphoria cover combines Druk with Noto Sans, and the font used for Bridgerton is Ayer, supported by what looks like Helvetica.

Art direction by Ivana Cruz.

Reuse, Renew, Recycle: Recent Architecture from China focuses on eight recent small-scale interventions by Chinese architects on the theme of sustainability. This idea of small-scale interventions inspired the design of the wall with the staggered title. The projects, numbered one through eight, interrupt and displace the oversize exhibition title. Inside, the numbering system continues on a map, and as headers that give structure to the space.

Whilst working at FARM, Rebekah Lee created the visual identity for HotBuns, a South-east Asian and Chinese street food takeout located at the Clarke Quay in Singapore. Inspired by the various kinds of colourful street stalls in Asia, a vibrant colour palette was defined and paired up with expressive typefaces.

The identity’s primary typeface is Kiosk by Nguyen Gobber which was also used in a slightly adapted version. The shape of Kiosk’s B also inspired the shelving system used for the takeout’s interior design. Supporting typefaces are Abordage by Eugénie Bidaut for copy text and Noto Sans to cover the Traditional Chinese script.