Klangwelt Toggenburg

From Studio Marcus Kraft:

For over 20 years, Klangwelt Toggenburg has been offering unique experiences on the subjects of sound, resonance, tradition, voice and much more. Embedded in the foothills of the Alps in Eastern Switzerland, characterized by an original singing and music culture. Just in time for the inauguration of the new Klanghaus (sound house) in May 2025, the institution is now getting a contemporary visual identity that reflects this special connection.

Studio Marcus Kraft accompanied the rebranding process for three years and developed a visual identity that conveys the complexity of the Klangwelt Toggenburg. The centerpiece is a tailor-made dynamic corporate typeface that can be modularly expanded using recurring letter elements – creating a typographic resonance inspired by overtones, sound frequencies and the mountains and valleys of the alpine landscape.

I had the privilege of helping to develop this font, a customization of Forma DJR called Klangwelt that is used across the entire identity. The basic family employs Forma’s double-story a and curled j as default characters, as well as introducing arrows for signage and a handful of other tweaks.

But the real fun was in working with Marcus to create the special Resonance style, which involved writing a Python script to automatically slice up the letterforms, create component glyphs for the parts, and duplicate them above and below the base letters.

The resulting font contains over 1,600 alternate glyphs that provide options for resonance position (duplicated above, below, or above and below) and resonance amplitude (duplicated one, two, three, or four times).

With so many glyphs, we worked to create a series of contextual rules that would automatically create a pleasing undulation of resonance peaks and valleys as words are typed. These rules take into account the presence of ascenders, descenders, and diacritics to ensure readability. From this “out-of-the-box” setting, designers can further customize their text using OpenType Stylistic Sets to access the remaining alternates, a typographic playground of near-limitless possibilities.

Brand introduction:

Embossing:

Klanghaus opening:

Website:

Resonance font:

Sound logo: