For the fourth anniversary of their CGI practice Contramateria, Rolando Luther hired Sabbath to create a new visual identity for the studio. The roll-out – mostly on Instagram – takes the shape of a series of 3D renders of imaginary objects featuring the identity, as a kind of mise en abyme where the communication about the identity and the identity itself are indistinguishable. Funnily enough, no clear logo can be distinguished.

It features NaN Serf Display Light as the main font carrying the identity, accompanied by NaN Metrify A Compressed Black and General Grotesque Mono Light in places. The sleek, sharp and geometric style of NaN Serf echoes the vert digital undertones of Contraforma's CGI renders. General Grotesque Mono is used for fictional UI elements, as a coding font with a twist.

Pennsylvania born brand Saucony started a rebrand in 2024 which seems to still be slowly unvailing. Mainly known in the field of athletics, the brand appears to try to gain a wider reach amid the raise of running as a very mainstream sport and running shoes being more than ever a legitimate item to wear for every day life.

Saucony left their 2007 logo untouched but switched their main typeface to NaN Metrify A. They consistently use its Ultrawide Black Italic and Ultrawide Light Italic as titling fonts, in all caps, as an unsurprising take on the italics for sport / speed genre. Then, they also use Metrify’s Standard width for texts. On rare occasions such as their Run As One campaign, you can see them also using compressed styles of the font. In this particular case, one can spot the consistent italic angle across weights and widths. On their website, Displaay’s Matter features in many places for the UI.

The fonts can be seen used across their website and social media, but also for all the event-specific merch they create, like for the London 10km run in 2024.

Marylia Scott is an influencer who launched her eponymous cosmetics brand in 2024. Her first products were her signature waterproof faux freckles and brow gel. Scott states in one of her videos that she was an art director “in a previous life” and that she rebranded her whole company by herself.

The brand logo is set in Akzidenz-Grotesk Extended in all caps. The brand uses NaN’s Metrify A Gigawide Extrabold for all titles, always in all caps. To accompany it, Newglyph’s Crystal is used in lighter and not as wide styles. The brand employs quite a minimalist branding with hints of neon. The signature red of the logo plays a big role as recurrent accent colour.

It’s always interesting when brand spend the effort using their chosen fonts for the captions or titles of their videos on social media instead of the default app fonts.

Fitbit Ace LTE is a connected smartwatch from the connected tech giant Fitbit in partnership with Google and targeted to a younger audience (and their parents). The case study and ads insist on the counterintuitive take that the watch (a screen) is designed to encourage kids to move more. In the tradition of Fitbit’s products, it's packed with trackers (GPS, heartbeat, accelerometer…), whereas this time the end user (the kid) is not the one having the main access to the data but their parents.

Studio Koto created the dedicated identity and campaign for this new product and worked with NaN to create a headline font based on a bolder and wider weight of NaN Metrify to carry their brand values. The rounded squircle shape of the watch was the inspiration into rounding Metrify in its inside corners. The watch UI uses the same font as most other Fitbit watches since 2015: Seville is a custom version of Atipo’s rounded sans Bariol.

See the launch campaign featuring both the UI and hero fonts:

Visit Koto’s case study for more animated examples.

An overview of the parent app on their smartphone, showing the loved feature of tracking the kid's position at anytime.

A wall inscription that could be seen during the Fitbit Ace LTE launch even in the New York Google Store

Sciences Po, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies is a research university located in Paris, France. They have their own publishing house, mostly publishing essays from researchers. They are now launching a bi-annual magazine focusing on the actuality of research, with a political angle. The first issue, released in April 2024, is titled “Une Europe fragmentée ?” which translates to “A Fragmented Europe?”. The many illustrations opening most articles are by Félix de Combat.

The whole first issue of Comprendre son temps is freely accessible as a PDF.

The magazine features a changing typographic cocktail, bringing new titling fonts for each issue while keeping Tekst A and NaN Metrify A (mostly in its Wide subfamily) for texts and sub-headings for all issues. A duo of contrasting sans serifs is sharing the spotlight for this first issue. Bureau Brut's Ostia Antica, in all caps, shows its very classical proportions inspired by monumental inscriptions while Brieface's Falser Grotesk appears very geometric and modern in comparison. The difference of proportion between the very wide round letters in Ostia Antica and quite narrow in Falser, is quite startling.

NaN Metrify is mostly used in its wider versions for all introductory paragraphs and recurring info, grounding the layout with subtle confidence. Teskt, in it A version (for Analog), the only serif of the four typefaces, strikes by its very organic, soft and calligraphic influences in comparison with the three sans serifs. As the text duo, Metrify and Tekst are opposite in their construction, contrast amount, but also in proportions, AAAAA using Metrify in its Wide subfamily while Tekst sports a quite narrow fit.

UK charity Barnardo’s unveiled their new brand identity, designed by The Clearing, two weeks ago. Barnardo’s has been supporting children, young people and their families for 150 years. From Wikipedia:

Barnado’s founded by Thomas John Barnardo in 1866, to care for vulnerable children. As of 2013, it raised and spent around £200 million each year running around 900 local services, aimed at helping these same groups. It is the largest children's charity in the UK in terms of charitable expenditure.

The charity is a significant part of the UK’s culture, with 600+ high-street charity shops, 800+ specialist services in communities across all four nations and influence in the rooms where national decisions are made.

The Clearing created a brand where every child could feel like they belong with the logo being a visual metaphor for a safe space where everyone can express whatever they’re feeling. Each letter captures a different emotion, held within the ‘safe space’ of the holding device. NaN contributed to this project with a custom cut of their NaN Metrify family, including the many alternates imagined together by Barnado’s children and employees. The customized cut appears to also be slightly rounder and friendlier than its retail counterpart