Category: Typography

Typography

Vernacular Typography Featured in
2012 Typography Calendar

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Some typefaces aren’t meant for everyday use. They often aren’t readable as running text or even for headlines. Most will never be licensed for public use nor are they commercially available. But they set the mood, add their own graphic interest, and tell their own slice of the story. That is the case with several of the typefaces featured in the 365 Typographic Calendar for 2012.

Take Girder, for example. Asked to create the identity for the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge next year, Kit submitted an alphabet as part of his presentation. The alphabet took its inspiration from the riveted girders that formed the unpinning of the bridge. The immediate association with San Francisco’s most famous landmark offered a visual linking device in the visitors’ gift shop, and made a distinctive image for all kinds of tourist souvenirs, from key chains to coffee mugs.

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Typography

Chester Zoo’s Wild Typography

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Manchester-based Music has rebranded Chester Zoo in Chester County, England, by creating a Crayon-colored typeface and logotype that look like they were drawn and embellished by a child — or a clever chimpanzee.

Playful, uninhibited and gleeful, the letterforms, created in collaboration with illustrator Adam Hayes, look like they were done in the wild with crude implements, away from digital devices that would edit out quirks and enforce uniformity. Free-wheeling details spring out of letterforms suggesting that these characters exist outside of captivity. As individually distinct as the letters are, collectively they make up a cohesive font available in four weights and upper and lower case. If animals had opposable thumbs and were able to hold a crayon to create their own font, this is probably how they would describe the Chester Zoo environment — relaxed, happy and free to be who they are.

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Typography

Typography Comes of Age

By Delphine Hirasuna |

“Enough with the typography already!” My complaint to Kit is that every other story he wants to post in @Issue has to do with type. So, I’m writing this somewhat under duress.

“Humor me,” Kit says.

But the truth is that perhaps more than any time in history, the average person on the street is acutely aware of the differences in typefaces. Thanks to the computer, we can pick the digital font that suits our mood and voice. As a culture, we have become type snobs, sneering at Comic Sans, forming snap opinions about people who make Arial their default font, arguing over whether Helvetica is deserving of its popularity, and ridiculing some faces as “so last century.”

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Packaging

Alfaro Packaging – Making Baroque Look Modern

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Alfaro is a tiny town in the renowned wine-producing La Rioja province in northern Spain. The region has been making wine since the days of the Phoenicians, with the earliest record of grape-growing dating to 873. This year to celebrate La Fiesta Barroca, Palacios Remondo created two commemorative wine collections that pay tribute to Alfaro, home to its winery. Palacios Remondo commissioned Estudio Dorian to design the packaging around a Baroque theme. The collection includes six labels for each wine, with the extravagantly Baroque ornamentation contained in the simple letterforms. The result is an understated elegance, clean and contemporary yet suggestive of a rich heritage.