Teylers Museum in Haarlem is the oldest museum in the Netherlands, founded in 1784 based on the legacy of Pieter Teyler van der Hulst, a banker and philanthropist with Enlightenment ideals. In his will, Teyler left provisions for the establishment of an institution to house scientific instruments, natural history collections, and art, with the goal of promoting knowledge and learning for the public good.

The museum's Oval Room, originally the primary exhibition space, was designed to reflect the intellectual values of the time. With its elliptical shape and high dome, it provided a setting for the display of objects and scholarly study. Today, it continues to house scientific instruments and geological specimens. As the museum expanded, additional galleries were built to accommodate its growing collection, but the Oval Room remains a central and historically significant feature.

For several decades, Teylers Museum has used DTL Documenta and DTL Haarlemmer for its signage and publications, including captions in the glass cases and information typeset on the walls during exhibitions. However, it is unfortunately unclear who first introduced these typefaces or how their use at the museum began.

Over the years, several studios including Bregt Balk, Gracia Lebbink and Studio Wesseling have worked on (parts of) the museum’s identity. It’s not clear which of the shown items was created by whom, except the image showing the ‘chiseled’ T, which is part of Studio Wesseling’s previous visual identity for the museum (they are also responsible for the current branding).

From Lars Müller Publishers:

How will the human body, collective and individual, cope with the estimated increases in global air temperatures and in the earth’s corresponding thermal stress? Atmosphere Anatomies: On Design, Weather, and Sensation offers an in-depth examination of design strategies that situate the body and its bioclimatic milieu at the core of their spatial formation.

Drawing upon ten paradigmatic projects in urban design and landscape architecture – from Rousham Gardens, Oxfordshire, to the city of Chandigarh in India – the book investigates the designers’ bioclimatic aims and their spatial outcomes. Woven throughout the book, the evocative photographic essays of Iwan Baan showcase the selected projects as inhabited spaces for everyday life.

The book Zeven talen in zeven dagen (“Seven languages ​​in seven days”) was authored by Gaston Dorren and published by Athenaeum – Polak & Van Gennep, Amsterdam. 2022

In this book you will learn to read seven languages ​​in seven days. The author, language journalist Gaston Dorren, takes you on an adventurous journey. A practical book in which you gradually learn to read seven languages: a seductive and attainable goal.

This edition needed a clear structure for the design. The text contains words that are highlighted and explained in the margin. A compact and well-arranged book with more than three hundred tables and lists that makes it easy for the reader to absorb the contents.

I chose Frank Blokland’s DTL Documenta because of its classic timeless character and it gives enough difference in color and tone in a typographical field, without it becoming boring. A very pleasant typeface to work with.

The paperback book contains 460 pages. The interior is made up of two spot colors: black and red. The cover is full color.

Founded in Leipzig in 1828, German publishing house Reclam Verlag is notorious for its popular “Universal-Bibliothek” paperback series, whose brightly-coloured covers have been familiar to high-school and university students in Germany for more than fifty years.

The most recent update on the classic “UB” cover template was undertaken in 2012 by Cornelia Feyll and Friedrich Forssman, who chose Frank E. Blokland’s DTL Documenta as the main typeface. They also strengthened the famous colour scheme which identifies each range within the series: yellow for the most popular one (literary classics in German), blue for study guides, orange for bilingual editions of literary and philosophical classics, magenta for non-fiction, red for books in other languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, etc.), and green for source texts aimed at university students.

The Feyll/Forssman design replaced the one established in 1988 (see this post) by Brigitte and Hans Peter Willberg featuring Stempel Garamond.

For those of you who can read German, the whole 2012 redesign and the history of the publishing house are summed up in this very nice publication (pdf).

For the state representative for political education in Schleswig-Holstein, amatik Designagentur created the brochure Demokratie direkt vor unserer Tür (“Democracy right outside our door”).

The teaching material is intended to familiarise students with the structures, participants and decision-making processes of local politics. It consists of two folders with booklets and master documents for making student copies, and is also available online.

Modern typography with Urby for display and DTL Documenta for text plus contemporary collage-like illustration by studioiu, Silke Weissbach loosen up the information transfer and thus create a low-threshold access for pupils.

The web version uses the same typefaces.

What choices do you make when designing a book at a time when people read less and less, while the need for craftsmanship and knowledge is greater than ever? The book ‘Patterns in Nature’ asked for authenticity, wonder and tactile experience.

The starting point of my study Expert Class Book Design at the Plantin Institute of Typography in Antwerp was to design a timeless, handy and clear book. Refined, lively and inviting to browse, read the scientific and philosophical content to marvel at the universal shapes, structures and patterns in nature.

An orange line is the common thread in the book; it adds structure, color and playfulness. The four images on the cover refer to the graphic patterns and organic shapes that nature creates and which can be traced back to mathematical shapes and structures.

I have done extensive research into the typography and a suitable basic pattern, in which the varied images, graphic drawings, schemes and inspiring quotes and fragments could come into their own.

The main text reads like a novel, so I chose DTL Documenta by Frank E. Blokland. Documenta has a uniform structure with a low contrast and robust serifs. It makes for an easily readable text and it has a timeless and classic character. The header, figure numbers and subheadings are use Berthold’s Akzidenz-Grotesk. A powerful, simple font that connects to the dark images and navigates you through the book.

The paper of the cover (Gmund Cover Natur, Papyrus) has a natural look and a fine structure, which matches the subject nicely. The color black of the endpapers (Pop’Set Black, Antalis) provides a strong contrast with the light cover, this contrast is also reflected in the interior.
The interior has an uncoated paper that feels like felt (Fuego Matt white, Papyrus).

The final results of the Expert Class Book Design of the Plantin Institute for Typography are exhibited in the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp of April 17 to June 30, 2021.

FEB

On the 10th of October 2015 the ArchipelpoëZie foundation celebrated its tenth ‘poetry wall’ by revealing a poem from the Belgian poet and diary writer Leonard Nolens, typeset in DTL Documenta on the wall of a historic building located in between the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) and Museum Meermanno in The Hague.

The foundation has as goal to embellish blank walls with poems typeset in typefaces designed by laureates from the KABK. The lettering is applied via laser-cut sheets and airbrush.

Leonard Nolens

Zbirka Trojinski Konj (Trojan Horse Collection), a book series from the Trojina Institute of Slovenia. DTL Documenta appears to be modified with shorter extenders, sharper corners, and a ‘k’ with disconnected stem.

Its production took almost ten years, more than hundred people worked on the concept and realization, besides the people at the printing office. The publication has to last for at least forty years. Eight tons of red ink and roughly 3,000 tons of light-weight paper (40 grams) were needed to produce the 3.6 million copies (1,300 pages each) of Gotteslob, the new prayer and song book of the Catholic church in Germany and Austria.

Responsible for the design of Gotteslob was Matthias Bumiller from the design agency Finken & Bumiller in Stuttgart, Germany. In 2006 he started with the design of this magnum opus, which resulted in a positively received test version in the next year. Legibility had the highest priority and factors like low light in churches in combination with the inevitable relatively small point sizes were taken into account. After testing several typefaces, Frank E. Blokland’s DTL Documenta was selected.

Éditions Non Standard:

… a selection of one hundred photographs of signs located in Le Havre, France. The signs are organised in five chapters and analysed accordingly: industry, public service, independent shops, franchise, seaside and temporary signs.

Living Proof Brand Identity

A quarterly journal about design and technology. Each issue uses roughly the same layout and type treatments, with variations in the spot color.

For roughly a decade the seriffed and sans versions of DTL Documenta are the corporate identity typefaces of the famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The typeface is used for the signage in the museum, publications, annual reports, et cetera. The usage of DTL Documenta on the Rijksmuseum’s website is not always consistent though, but ah… such is life.