A vortex of words and an exercise with type. Endless, aimless, we dive in and use letters to yet again try to verbalize, connect and maybe understand ourselves and each other.

Based on the work of António Lobo Antunes

Poster made with the lyrics of the song “Samuel Mira” by Valete (Prod Baghira & Dr Neo Cortex)

Fragto a flexible typeface:
Fragto is a titling font with an experimental concept. The font has three styles. Fragto is divided into two parts: a fixed part that remains similar across the three styles and a flexible part, different for each style. Thanks to these two parts, the typeface can be used in one or two colours.

Typographic specimen:
To present this typeface, I have created a typographic specimen with the theme of eclectic music. This subject symbolises the formal diversity offered by the Fragto typeface. An artist, representing a different type of music, is assigned to each typeface style: classical music, yodelling (Swiss traditional music) and electronic music.

For this exercise, I decided to play with the idea of mix and layer. As a graphic designer I am at a point where I can comfortably pair two or three typefaces, maybe four. Can I handle more than that? I think I do. I also love the idea of stacking words with different colors and textures, so I wanted to see how far I could go without the poster becoming too overwhelming. At the same, time I wanted to set a limit when it came to color. I loved the final result; I just wish I’ve added more and more words.

Non-normative letters for a non-normative future.

Bud Rodecker — Design Direction, Design
Alyssa Arnesen — Design

Graphic excerpt from a soon to be released uplifting identity.

John Pobojewski — Concept, Design Direction, Strategy, Design
Nick Adam — Design

One of three distinct brands designed to emphasize the differences of lifestyles in a new tower in Chicago. This op art 23 is designed with a brutalism feel that relates to the loft’s architecture and attitude.

Nick Adam — Design Direction, Designer
Avery Branen — Designer, Illustrator

Unselected identity direction for a new restaurant that is reinventing Nashville Hot Chicken in Chicago.

“Stripes Vertical” is a monospaced display font that I designed earlier this year.
The founder and developers of a start-up focused on industrial IoT solutions I work for introduced me to free software, open source technology and the pioneer hackers spirit. So, designing the brand identity of the company, I used a visual style that recalls the graphics of the first personal computers and the dawn of the internet. I used the “Stripe Vertical” font for the title, numbers and acronyms in two one-sheet-only pdf presentations. Soon I would like to digitize and share it for free.

Bud Rodecker — Design Director, Designer
Alyssa Arnesen — Designer, Typeface Designer

Southwest Sans is a display typeface that was designed for residences in the Southwest of the United States. The monospaced-letterform build from Southwest motifs with a uniform geometry.

Pasto is a fun and charming display type family of two styles and four weights each. The first one, Print, is a textured irregular stamp style, and Sharp is a straightforward soft-edged type with clean strokes.

This type family provides three alternating alphabets that are automatically replaced in turn repeatedly to avoid the same letterforms and textures appearing next to each other, once more referring to its natural uniqueness inspiration.

Perfectly suited for graphic design and any display use, Pasto has very large language support! Special characters and currency symbols are also available.

Earthpass 20XX invites the reimagination and speculation of the world.
20XX indicates that this concept is a wishful dream for this century.
This luminescent keychain is made of laser-cut acrylic and reminds of official identity documents.
Earthpass 20XX believes that no one should be excluded by its gender, race, ability, or anything other, and expects these values from its holders.
“NO GENDERS. NO BORDERS.”
As the world seems filled with horrific news every day, this seems like a far-away utopia of a speculative, yet hopeful future.
The team of Earthpass 20XX donates its profits to Ukrainian Refugee Aid and Free Palestine.

(Photography: Elisabeth Thoma, Product Shoot: Sibylle Hornung, 3D

Nick Adam — Design Direction, Design
Avery Branen — Design

Two identity directions for an outdoor, neighborhood arts space for public exploration, expression, and exchange.

John Pobojewski — Concept, Design Direction, Animation, Audio
Zach Minnich — 3D, Animation
Leah Wendzinski — Animation, Cinematography
Alyssa Arnesen — Design
Nick Adam — Typeface Design

Type Cast is a short digital play performed as a constructed dialogue between two individuals, each wearing typographic clothing in conversation with each other.

Conceived and directed by John Pobojewski, the piece explores the relationship between letters, personality, emotion, and stereotype. Throughout the dialogue, the two actors challenge each others’ expectations, and begin to lose faith in their mental image of what each other stands for — both for the good and for the bad.

OpenType technology allows for multiple variations of the same glyph to be embedded in one font and then displayed semi-randomly when typeset with Contextual Alternates active. What happens when these variations are from commonly available typefaces that are similar yet different – such as the four common san serifs: Akzidenz Grotesk, Helvetica, Arial, and Univers? How do the subtle variations in the visual characteristics of each typeface scan when bodies of text are set in this mix of glyphs? Do the hybrid font and the derived typography reveal the differences and similarities of the original typefaces? And what are the copyright implications? For more info: ianmitchell.online/common

A Bilingual typographic visualization of the sound of Rocks “Booming” and Water “Splashing.” With the word BOOM being the sound of rocks crashing in English and the word TISH (تش) being the sound of water splashing in Arabic, the letting and composition explore the different dimensions of these Bi-Scriptural and Bilingual contrasting sounds and words through organic forms, 2D, 3D and Motion.

Qanik type is an ever-changing font design project. It was born to combine order with chaos.
Geometric and archaic glyphs of different manufactures change as you write. The order is identified in the design that composes the letters with simple and modular, but almost never parallel lines. The shapes of the letters are inspired by rock carvings.
The chaos is given by the almost random alternation of the weight of the letters. Qanik means “snow in the air” in the Inuit language. The QanikType Snow variant is like a snow storm and you don’t understand what you write.

We are used to conceiving typography as a visual system made of two-dimensional black shapes and this both on paper and screen. Recent technologies make it possible to easily act on this two-dimensionality by forcing the very concept of writing in favor of a more expressive and experimental approach to the typographic form. it is therefore more and more common to see letters move in space, deform, change color, become 3D. Serendipity is an animated poster generated from 2D letters. Like vases made on a lathe, the letters rotate on themselves, creating solids with pure shapes, almost anthropomorphic sculptures. Typography thus becomes a three-dimensional object with new formal connotations.

My practice is about abandoning control and accepting the uncontrollable. My poster is a word cloud of obsessions that includes unwanted thoughts, urges, worries, and doubts. It’s from different analog methods of chance and unpredictability (IE., soapy paint bubbles, pastel dust, collage, or shaving cream with food coloring).

Pexi pexi is an experimental tool where the user can create shapes thus type on a grid with basic modules like squares and circles but also emoji and reform the grid axis stretching the modules. The idea started from my intention to learn somehow code but also from the ability of code to create interaction with the user.

Kinetic letters is an ongoing study and experimentation upon the movement of type along time. How type can be more expressive and have a character by moving but also how type can change form, along the time sequence. The particular letters are also part of the 36days of type challenge for this year, a challenge that its purpose is to experiment and push further what we consider type.

The LetterOne has its origins as a stencil font that allows one to draw each letter and each digit with only one stencil. The resulting font was digitalised and then converted into a modular letter system for letterpress printing. For this purpose, the stencil was produced as a mould into which six different acrylic-glass elements can be inserted. This system is also modular in the sense that several of these modules can be combined to form extended or condensed typefaces. LetterOne thus takes the path from an analogue stencil font via a modern font for digital use back to the analogue, historical technique of letterpress printing.