Ripple Swing

We have developed another, lighter typeface of the Ripple font family with eighteen lines in the letterform. The character is smooth and harmonious, and its missing rigid structure makes this font perfect for any kind of visual experience. Each letter interacts with any letter of the typeface to produce unique combinations. We wanted to take the lined forms to the next step and obtain more illustrative variations of the Ripple font without compromising on the idea. Ripple Swing Display font is made for showing off in posters, headlines, and on large-scale implementations.

Video Series for nature.org

illo.tv is a creative design studio based in Italy, which has created a motion design video series for nature.org exploring the things they can do to preserve the planet.

Climate change represents one of humanity’s most pressing issues, but how do you manage to get that message across, while mixing science facts with an engaging and witty tone? illo.tv explored the answer to this question in the video series designed for The Nature Conservancy, the environmental nonprofit working to create a world where people and nature can thrive together. Their unique goal is to clearly showcase what needs to to be done now.

The aim was to create a video series for nature.org that could stand out individually and also work as part of a bigger story. To achieve that the creative studio developed four different styles for each video, working with the same color palette and tone of voice to make the series cohesive. Engaging storytelling, a pinch of humor and their staple motion design magic added to the mix, while the studio’s recognizable color approach brought an extra vibrant touch to the project. The environmental organization’s signature green worked as a starting point for the color palette, while flashy contrasts and bold pairings helped the videos stand out. The result? Four compelling stories combining distinctive style with bright designs and strong messaging to get us one step closer to saving the world.

The studio will release the videos one by one and the first one to shine in their portfolio explores the importance of biodiversity, diving into the variety and the links that are vital for this natural delicate balance. Tune in for the next ones, tackling natural climate solutions, carbon markets, and regenerative food systems!

In the first episode they explored the importance of biodiversity, diving it into the variety and the links that are vital for this natural delicate balance. The second episode is about the year 2050, they look back on how they managed to save the world. It all started with one of the most advanced carbon capture: trees. In the third episode they embark on a revealing journey into this little understood, yet practical solution to the planet’s rapid heating problem: carbon markets. The last episode tackles the relationship with food, how it shapes our lives, our economies and our cultures—but most of all, our planet. Enter, regenerative food system.

Video Series for nature.org

You can watch the video series here and find out more about the project.

 

Am Ende Licht

„Am Ende Licht“ ist eine typografische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Sprichwort „Es gibt Licht am Ende des Tunnels“. Gerade jetzt, in Zeiten vieler Krisen, ist nicht immer klar, dass der Tunnel endet, wir ihn passieren können und danach wieder unter Sonnenlicht stehen werden. „Am Ende Licht“ ist in hellen, lebendigen und warmen Farben gedruckt, die nicht nur Hoffnung geben, sondern den Betrachter auch beruhigen. Denn ja, es gibt Licht am Ende.

Off the Grid

Today we would like to present you the book Off the Grid. This book has been edited by Sara De Bondt and gives us a brief overview about Belgian graphic design.

Off the Grid offers a collaborative panorama of Belgian graphic design history from a multiplicity of perspectives, with essays on type design, colonization, and labour relations among other subjects. Contributors include historians, practicing designers, teachers, and first-hand accounts. With hundreds of previously unpublished illustrations such as posters, signage, typography, book design, logos, and archival photographs.

The book Off the Grid includes interviews with Sophie Alouf-Bertot, Rob Buytaert, Boudewijn Delaere, Paul Ibou, and Herman Lampaert. It also features essays by Jo De Baerdemaeker, Pia Jacques and Leroy Meyer (Belgian Institute Graphic Design), Sara De Bondt, Jan Ceuleers, Katrien Van Haute, Richard Hollis, Jean-Michel Meyers, Hilde Pauwels, Hugo Puttaert, and Katarina Serulus.

Off the Grid

Publisher: Occasional Papers
Editor: Sara De Bondt
Release: February 22nd, 2022
Bookbinding: Softcover, full color
Language: English
Volume: 272 p.
Format: 170 × 240 mm
ISBN: 978-0-9954730-8-9
Price: £ 20.–
Buy

Panorama : a colored monospaced font

Panorama is a colored monospaced font that emerges from a desire of finding other visual ways of communication and transmission rather than using typography and letters.
This book depicts and illustrates the diverted using of “Glyphs”, known as a software allowing the construction of fonctional fonts.
Led by an ongoing process of creating a font in a paradoxical
modern way, this diverted use software allowed the creation of a visual typography. It permitted to generate different panoramas thru the creation and the construction of this monospaced font.
Behind this collection of landscapes hide a real alphabet made with a font-tool. A new way opening a door to the creation of new alphabets

Mulholland Drive

A book about David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive’. The book consists of extracted phrases and words from the film, which hints at the film’s overarching multi-layered narrative. The text are treated simply, such as slicing, stretching and blurring. However, these simple forms are given the freedom to juxtapose and add complexity to one another, depending on the pages the reader flips. Each page layers onto one another and the multiple layers begin to formulate different varying complexities. At some point, text becomes image and it’s difficult to distinguish the boundaries between them. The loose nature of the book lets the reader navigate between clarity and complexity, on their own.

Scriptorium

A celebration of monastic life

2021 marked a thousand years of Monastic life in the Dutch province of Brabant. Graphic design has a rich tradition that is closely linked to monastic life. It could be argued that the monastic scriptoria laid the foundation for the spreading of knowledge and contemporary graphic design. To allow people to (re)discover the origin and value of handwriting, an interactive installation was conceived. Thanks to an automatic process, each collected manuscript was converted into a digital font. Finally, all thousand manuscripts will be bound in a book, resulting in a Gesamtkunstwerk of handwriting by the people of Brabant: the Manus Brabantiae.

Super Tramp

The typeface Super Tramp by Vivian Dehning is a serif font, which pridefully takes up space with wide letterforms, generous tracking, and lively, multifaceted swashes. The idea behind the concept is to reflect diverse characters and identities as well as to encourage the dismantling of biases.

With its round and smooth as well as angular and sharp shapes contrasts complement and support each other to come together as confident characters and build a joyful group as a whole.

Super Tramps’ glyph set offers several types of swashes to express diverse attributes. Extrovert, introvert, and everything in between or beyond; every character has a right to exist and be given space as well as acceptance. Vivian states, that because language is fluid and builds our realities, values like respect and empathy should be carried in communication—through words, appearance and actions. She designed Super Tramp as a response to those values.

The typeface comes with eleven variations for the asterisk glyph. In languages like German the so-called “Gendersternchen” is one way to communicate gender inclusive terms.

An OpenType feature is provided for the letters A/a and E/e: They are assigned to an asterisk for people who like using terms like wom*n or hum*n for themselves to safe some time here or there in practice. Super Tramp includes 572 glyphs, 65 stylistic alternates, and 23 ligatures. You can get a 80% discount if you use the font for projects on social, animal, and climate justice.

Super Tramp

Designer: Vivian Dehning
Release date: December, 2021
Languages: Latin Basic, Western European, Central European, South Eastern European, South American, Oceanian, Sámi, Esperanto
File formats: otf, woff, woff2
Price: € 55.–  for a single license
For purchasing licenses or trials reach out to Vivian by mail

Beyond the Archive

Students at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach have taken a close look at the type specimens in the Klingspor Museum. From March 12th to May 29th, 2022, the exhibition Beyond the Archive will show historical objects from the early 20th century from the Gebr. Klingspor’s archive.

Offenbach was home to the Gebr. Klingspor, an internationally renowned type foundry that set standards with its artistic standards and is still a household name today. Their estate forms one of the core holdings of the Klingspor Museum archive. Approximately 60 cassettes contain larger and smaller historical objects from the early 20th century: Preliminary sketches and correspondence that bear witness to the creation of typefaces still known today, as well as artistically designed type specimens that advertised the finished products.

The exhibition directs today’s attention to this archive and the material stored in it. How can it be questioned in a new way? And what can we still learn from it today? Using questions like these, a small group of typography students and graduates of the Hochschule für Gestaltung spent almost a year investigating the history of the former type foundry Gebr. Klingspor, often finding new questions instead of answers, and uncovering a great deal of exciting material along the way that they had not been looking for. The result of this exploration is the exhibition curated and designed by the students.

From the Art Nouveau typefaces of Otto Eckmann or Peter Behrens to the calligraphic-looking Fraktur fonts of Rudolf Koch, selected works of the typeface artists at Klingspor and their backgrounds are shown. But even beyond these big names, the exhibition explores interesting stories surrounding the creation of typefaces—a complex process that could only be realized through the cooperation of many people. Using a wide variety of objects, the exhibition takes a look at typeface design and its social and political contexts. The ambivalences during the Nazi era are also part of this picture. Beyond the archive, the work of Gebr. Klingspor is brought to life here in its richness of form and complexity.

A closer connection between the university and the museum has already existed for four years in the Klingspor Institute for Type Design. In this context, in addition to the exhibition, the historical stock of Klingspor type specimens is being digitized. In the future, this previously uncatalogued stock will be accessible online via a platform, the Klingspor Type Archive, which will be presented for the first time at the exhibition.

Beyond the Archive

When?
From March 12th to May 29th, 2022
Opening: March 11th, 2022, 7 p.m.

Where?
Klingspor Museum
Herrnstraße 80 
63065 Offenbach am Main
Germany

Photo: Turbo Type

Cooks Creek

Cooks Creek is a historical spot in Winnipeg that I visited during the summer and I decided to use the photos I took for the poster. The design consists a lot of clipping mask, distortions/warping and marble-like patterns. I customized the type by using the bloating effect on Illustrator to produce flower-like shapes mostly on the rounded letters. The type is also warped using different warp effects on Illustrator but I made sure that there is still a balance between the letters. The photo is edited on photoshop to add textures, camera raw filters and hue changes.

Sonnets

Sonnets is my attempt at experimenting with symbols and typography, and how just the shape of letters can transform into beautiful patterns. The shapes are inspired by ornamental architecture, Arabic type flair as well as the beauty of repetition. I wanted to see if each letter could say something interesting, repeating into rhythmic visual sonnets.

Hausmusik

„If you feel lonely, surround yourself with everyday noise.“ (Homeshopping commercial). In „Hausmusik“ everyday life sounds are rhythmically adjusted to a beat, the associated terms are animated to the beat… And yet everyday life seems not so boring anymore.

On the Necessity of Gardening

On the Necessity of Gardening by Laurie Cluitmans tells the story of the garden as a rich source of inspiration. It is now available at Slanted Shop!

For centuries, the garden has been regarded as a mirror of society, a microcosm, in which the broader relationships between nature and culture are played out on small scale. From this long cultural tradition also raises a call for a new awareness of our relationship with the earth.

Over the centuries, artists, writers, poets, and thinkers have each described, depicted, and designed the garden in different ways. In medieval art, the garden was a reflection of paradise, a place of harmony and fertility, shielded from worldly problems. However, the garden is not just a neutral place and intended solely for personal pastime, it is a place where the world manifests itself and where the relationship between culture and nature is expressed.

In the eighteenth century this image shifted: the garden became a symbol of worldly power and politics. The Anthropocene, the era in which man completely dominates nature with disastrous consequences, is forcing us to radically rethink the role we have given nature in recent decades.

There is a renewed interest in the theme of the garden among contemporary makers. It is not a romantic desire that drives them, but rather a call for a new awareness of our relationship with the earth, by connecting different fields of activity in landscape, art, and culture. Through many different essays and an extensive abecedarium, On the Necessity of Gardening reflects on the garden as a metaphor for society, through concepts such as botanomania and capitalocene, from guerrilla gardening to queer ecology and zen garden.

Laurie Cluitmans (b. 1984, NL) works as a curator of contemporary art for the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and is also an independent art critic. In 2016 she received the Prize for Young Art Criticism for her essay on the garden by Derek Jarman and Ian Hamilton Finlay.

On the Necessity of Gardening—An ABC of Art, Botany and Cultivation

Publisher: Valiz
Editor: Laurie Cluitmans
Designer: Bart de Baets
Contributors: Maria Barnas, Jonny Bruce, Laurie Cluitmans, Thiëmo Heilbron, Liesbeth M. Helmus, Erik A. de Jong, René de Kam, Alhena Katsof, Jamaica Kincaid, Bart Rutten, Catriona Sandilands, Patricia de Vries
Design: Bart de Baets June 2021, Valiz in collaboration with Centraal Museum, Utrecht
Release: June 2021
Bookbinding: Paperback
Language: English
Volume: 240 p.
Format: 32 × 24 cm
Price: € 29.90
ISBN: 978-94-93246-00-3
Buy

Ripple Air

Ripple Air grew out of a concept of how font components or letters can interact with others by overlapping and causing a Moiré pattern effect by simply combining and moving the geometrical forms. This headline font is neither functional nor follows the usual graphic approach. Its development is not representing the traditional step-by-step procedure driven-way to develop a font. Its starting point is the trial and error method. Due to the complexity of the font, multiple attempts were made to reach an adequate result. The huge number of paths of the fonts were optimized to its best using a font editor to export the font and to solve all technical problems.

Stiftung Buchkunst: Call for Entries 2022

Stiftung Buchkunst: Call for Entries 2022 starts now! The Stiftung Buchkunst (German Foundation for Book Design) invites you to participate in two of their competitions Die Schönsten Deutschen Bücher 2022 (The Best German Book Design 2022) and Förderpreis für junge Buchgestaltung 2022 (Sponsorship Prize for Young Book Design 2022). The deadline for both competitions is March 31st, 2022.

Die Schönsten Deutschen Bücher 2022 (The Best German Book Design 2022)
In the competition of Die Schönsten Deutschen Bücher by Stiftung Buchkunst, 25 books are selected for award by an independent interdisciplinary jury of editorial design experts. The books chosen are outstanding examples of design, concept, and finish. There are five prize winners in each of the five categories: General Literature, Academic Works/Educational Textbooks, Guides/Non-Fiction, Art and Photography/Exhibition Catalogues, and Children’s and Young People’s Books. The selection also takes account of the more minimalistic, well-typed reading book.

All 25 books which gain an honorary award in the competition are automatically nominated for the Award of the Stiftung Buchkunst. Endowed by the German Government’s Representative for Culture and Media and with a total value of 10,000 Euros. This remunerative award is intended for books which show an exceptionally high degree of commitment on the part of their publishers and of all those involved in their production, and which through their overall design and finish provide new impulses to modern book design.

Förderpreis für junge Buchgestaltung 2021 (Sponsorship Prize for Young Book Design)
Since 1989 the Stiftung Buchkunst has annually awarded the Sponsorship Prize for Young Book Design. Design Students, book designers, typographers, and those in production are invited to participate. The award is intended to promote innovative book design. The prize aims to recognize innovative ideas surrounding printed books as well as hybrid book forms. As a prize for innovation it can thus provide a stimulative arena for the books of tomorrow. The prize is endowed by the German Government’s Representative for Culture and Media with a total value of 6,000 Euros and is divided equally between three up and-coming book designers, 2,000 Euros each.

Stiftung Buchkunst: Call for Entries 2022

Die Schönsten Deutschen Bücher 2022
Deadline: March 31st, 2022
Prize: 10,000 Euros
Participate

Förderpreis für junge Buchgestaltung 2022
Deadline: March 31st, 2022
Prize: 6,000 Euros in total (2,000 Euros for three up and-coming book designers)
Participate

 

 

Scripts of the World

ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne and the Fondation Martin Bodmer have joined forces to celebrate typographic creation and the Scripts of the World.

ECAL will present original projects in contemporary typography and graphic design, from its Bachelor Graphic Design and Master Type Design programs, comparing them with Fondation Martin Bodmer’s UNESCO listed heritage through a series of lectures, events, and workshops on Sunday afternoons February 27th and March 20th, 2022.

This event marks the 200th anniversary of ECAL (1821–2021) and is organized by ECAL and Fondation Martin Bodmer with the support of: Fédération des Araméens en Suisse, World Council of Arameans, UNHCR, Fondation Laus Plena, and Swiss Graphic Designers.

Scripts of the World

When?
February 27th, 2022, 2 p.m.–6 p.m. (FR/EN)
Typographic Art: From the Major Names to the Revival

March 20th, 2022, 2 p.m.–6 p.m. (FR/EN)
Languages and Cultures: Inventing a Materiality

Find the detailed program and registration here.

Where?
Fondation Martin Bodmer
Route Martin-Bodmer 19
1223 Cologny (Geneva)
Switzerland

Hexapode

»Hexapode« is a modular typeface. It was developed within the experimental typography course »New Alphabet« of the summer semester 2020 at the FH Aachen in the department of design. The course was led by Prof Dipl.-Des. Eva Kubinyi.
»Hexapode« was specially implemented on an abstract basis of the subject of »insects«.
It is an eye-catcher with its interplay of even curves, sharp edges and striking white spaces. Due to its good readability, it can be used for short flow texts, but especially for striking design.

modular b (Modular Typeface)

The project involved the development of a Bauhaus-inspired modular typeface called “modular b”. It is based on the combination of the basic geometric shapes circle and square. This has resulted in a series of modules from which letters can be variably assembled. The Specimen website serves to present the concept, the modules and the design components that make up modular b. It also offers the possibility of trying out the typography online and downloading it free of charge. Functional application of the typeface was achieved through a modular cube system that provides an opportunity to place the typeface in space.

Verkehrs(w)ende

The increasing road expansion and car use cause numerous problems. Among these are the traffic jams caused by the high number of cars, the space taken up by cars in cities, and the insufficient parking spaces available for the vast mass of cars. Pedestrians also face numerous hazards within cities due to road traffic. Another problem generated by traffic is the constant environmental pollution caused by the exhaust gases produced. For these reasons, we would like to pay attention to the traffic turnaround with our poster series. Since the traffic turnaround provides various thematic references, we have set the focus on the strong increase in traffic and its consequences.

12th GRANSHAN Type Design Competition

We invite you to take part in the 12th GRANSHAN Type Design competition until February 28th, 2022. GRANSHAN celebrates the diversity and richness of the typographic scripts that underpin global communication, empower communities, and enable identity.

The bi-annual GRANSHAN Type Design Competition helps the type design community worldwide to become aware of the continuously increasing quality of projects and make it present to type users. The competition is a powerful tool for the award winners and their very demanding projects, especially at a time when bilingual or even multiscript applications are becoming increasingly more important.

All type designers, type foundries, and clients with custom typefaces from all parts of the world are invited to take part in the competition. Again they are looking for the best typeface designs in nine script groups: Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Korean, South Asian Scripts, and Thai.

To find the most excellent non-Latin Typefaces in the world, more than 50 international, well-known script experts will judge the entries in a three-level-process. The competition will again be led by two non-voting chairpersons: For the first time by Veronika Burian together with the inventor of the GRANSHAN project, Edik Ghabuzyan.

This time the announcement of the winners and the celebration of the GRANSHAN GRAND PRIZE will take place during the (due to the pandemic) postponed Munich Designweek MCBW from May 14th to 22nd, 2022.

12th GRANSHAN Type Design Competition

Submissions
Submissions can be made using the submission tool until February 28th, 2022.

Start of Jury Work
March 7th, 2022

Announcement of Winners
During the Munich Creative Business Week, May 14th to 22nd, 2022.

 

The Design of the Year 20/21

The winners of Poland’s graphic design competition The Design of the Year 20/21, were awarded at a gala in December, 2021. Now it is time to present the results.

Design of the Year is the first graphic design competition in Poland that goes beyond the aesthetic evaluation, reflecting on the functions of design and the social responsibility of the creators. Established in 2010, the competition analyzes the most ground-breaking projects by graphic designers in Poland and promotes values ​​close to the Association of Applied Graphic Designers.

Project of the Year does not want to undertake simply the aesthetic evaluation of projects. They want the process of acquiring projects, which are then discussed at the jury’s deliberations, to notice the wider context of their creation and diagnose trends in the category of commercial graphics. As part of the competition, they try to consider the nominated projects on several levels, often confronting works that fall into various formal categories.

368 applications were submitted, which were divided into the following categories: Form (118), Idea (72), Social impact (48), Design for public institutions (57), Environmentally friendly projects (13), and Fresh blood (60).

This year, the guest on the stage of the Project of the Year Gala was also the AMS Poster Gallery, which awarded prizes to the winners of the 22nd edition of the competition. Awards in the competition were presented to: Liliia Drahomaretska, Łukasz Mesjasz, Katarzyna Nachman, Julia Sikorska, and Wiktoria Wojnarowska. The winners of the main prize was Anna Parada.

The main prize for the Design of the Year and the Studio/Designer of the Year title went to UVMW. The winning design of the wayfinding system for the new headquarters of the State Music School Complex No. 1 in Warsaw and the victory and distinction in the FORM category, and three projects among the nominations are works that cannot be ignored. For many years, UVMW has been building its brand in the field of design offices that boldly enter into relationships with large brands, and then carry out a smaller, but open-ended project for cultural institutions or small businesses.

The Special Award went to Jadwiga Tryzno and the Book Art Museum in Łódź for creating a place where the passion for graphic design and typography can run wild and fly away. The winner of the Form category was the UVMW studio for the labeling system for the new headquarters of the Complex of State Music Schools No. 1 in Warsaw. Distinctions went to Uniforma for the visual identity design of the Short Waves Festival 2021 and to UVMW for the graphic identification of the Mikrogorzelnia. The Idea category brought an award to the project Brutal Poland by Zupagrafika. The distinction was awarded to Patryk Hardziej and Ada Zielińska for the visual identity of the Gdynia Design Days ’21 festival. Two prizes were awarded in the category Design for public institutions: the Baka/Podolak duo for the Planet Lem visual identity project and Aleksander Znosko Studio for the Time is Love project. The visual language project Trouble in Paradise by Kuba Maria Mazurkiewicz was selected for a distinction. The jury decided not to award the main prize in the Environmentally Friendly Design category. Only a distinction was awarded—it was presented to Kasia Walentynowicz for the memory games With a visit to the water (…) and With a visit to the forest (…). The prize in the category Social Impact was not awarded, but the visual identification of the exhibition Extinction claims by Gabriela Baka was distinguished. The awards in the fresh blood category went to Antoni Kwiatkowski for the Adapt Typeface typeface design and to Maria Smaga for the HELP application design. The works selected for distinction include the publications: New “sacred” symbols by Natalia Gil and the conceptual project RED CUBE Expect the unexpected by Paloma Kałuzińska.

The Design of the Year 20/21

Find out more about the contest on the website, watch the gala video, and have a look on the publication for the contest.