Typeface of the Month: Study

Posted on by Slanted editors

Although the technologies for producing type have become far more expedient, the techniques for designing type are essentially the same. While developing Study, our new Typeface of the Month published by XYZ Type, the key challenge was to combine the past and the present, to translate the warmth of a hand-painted specimen into cold, unforgiving vector outlines.

Study is a new serif type family with a strong personality and a fascinating history. The design blends elements of calligraphy and typography, with tension between soft outer shapes and angular counterforms. Dramatic forms draw attention at large sizes, yet become quiet in paragraphs of text. The typeface’s large counterforms and wide proportions make it extremely clear and readable without sacrificing style. Study is based on a concept rendered by Rudolph Ruzicka (1883–1978) in the book Studies in Type Design (1968) but never previously completed as a functioning font. Ruzicka’s signature aesthetic is at its peak in these lively letterforms, demonstrating his interest in Czech lettering and his skill as a wood engraver.

By creating Study, designer Jesse Ragan has completed Ruzicka’s unfinished typeface fifty years after it was first published, adapted to modern typography and technology. The original source material for Study existed as only a limited hand-painted alphabet, so a deep understanding of Ruzicka’s life and work helped Ragan find the design’s true voice. Over several years, he extensively researched the Czech-American designer and illustrator’s body of work, studying archives of unpublished drawings and correspondence.

In its final digital form, Study is a family of twelve font styles, each including small capitals, ligatures, fractions, and four kinds of numerals. The fonts are designed to work well in print and on screen, from large sizes down to text settings.

XYZ Type has also shared a detailed article about the history and process behind the typeface on their site, where you can also see the full Study family.

Study

Foundry: XYZ Type
Designer: Jesse Ragan, Rudolph Ruzicka
Release: 2018
Format: Desktop, web, app
Weights: 7 weights in roman and italic
Price: From US$ 40,– per font style
Buy

TOTAL ARMAGEDDON—A Slanted Reader on Design

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

With our latest publication TOTAL ARMAGEDDON we celebrate 15 eventful years of independent publishing. A collection of both, essays that are brand new as well as the very best essays from 32 issues of Slanted Magazine, written by the most vital and vibrant global voices in writing on design and culture today such as Steven Heller, Piotr Rypson, Gerry Leonidas, Yoon Soo Lee, Kiyonori Muroga, and a host of others. 

Thanks to a great collaboration with our friend and renowned author Ian Lynam as the editor of the book, and an exciting funding process on Kickstarter, a publication with 400 pages is being published for loyal friends and also new design enthusiasts alike.

TOTAL ARMAGEDDON is about design. And culture. And complexity, notably how we, as a global civilization, deal with science fiction, taste, social media, the cities we live in, aesthetics, PowerPoint, burkas, Big Tech, full-contact sports, and other thorny topics. It comes with essays by Can Altay, Eran Bacharach, Simon Baker, Emanuel Barbosa, Laure Boer, Gerda Breuer, Dr. Nadine Chahine, Doug Clouse, Olga Drenda, Jori Erdman, Marcus Farr, Kenneth FitzGerald, Charlotte von Fritschen, Amélie Gastaut, Martin Giesen, Jonathan M. Hansen, Steven Heller, Ilka Helmig, Will Hill, Lorena Howard-Sheridan, Natalia Ilyin, Mr. Keedy, Marianna Kellokoski, Matilda Kivelä, Toshiaki Koga, Iwona Kurz, Carolina Laudon, Yoon Soo Lee, Gerry Leonidas, Christine Lhowe, Tim Loffing, Mathieu Lommen, Ian Lynam, Dermot Mac Cormack, Georgios Matthiopoulos, Julia Meer, Silas Munro, Kiyonori Muroga, Randy Nakamura, Alexander Negrelli, Ingo Niermann, Panos Papanagiotou, Natassa Pappa, David Peacock, Louise Rouse, Piotr Rypson, Niki Sioki, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Thierry Somers, Sonja Steppan, Agata Szydłowska, Aleksander Tokarz, Alexander Torell, Angela Voulangas, Rene Wawrzkiewicz, Wolfgang Weingart, and Onur F. Yazıcıgil.

Thanks so much to all authors, it’s a great honor to publish your writings in this exciting book!

TOTAL ARMAGEDDON—A Slanted Reader on Design

Publisher: Slanted Publishers
Editor: Ian Lynam, Slanted Publishers
Release: March 2019
Volume: 400 pages
Format: 16 × 24 × 3,2 cm
Language: English
Printing: LE-UV offset + white (Druckerei Vogl)
Paper: Holmen BOOK Extra 2.0 (Holmen Paper)
Cover material: Invercote G Metalprint (Iggesund Paperboard)
Typefaces: Beatrice (Sharp Type) and Edit Serif (Atlas Font Foundry)
ISBN: 978-3-9818296-6-2
Price: € 30,–
Buy

Creative Disruptors

Posted on by Slanted editors

For companies doing business in 2019, using eye-catching imagery is a given: customers expect to be inspired. And nowhere is visual disruptiveness more necessary than on Instagram.

Here, we highlight three brands that consistently post exceptional images, and show you how stock can be your source for compelling visual content that helps you stand out on social media.

 

@matcha.miya
MATCHA.MIYA: Embrace Ritual

Matcha Miya’s grid exudes a zen-like energy, making it a space where their customers can visually immerse themselves in the ritual of enjoying a cup of tea.

Key takeaway: Content before commerce. The brand posts few product shots, focusing instead on their aesthetic. This is a welcome respite for customers who are often bombarded by aggressive sales messages.

 

@harrys
Harry’s: Create Connection

With a savvy combination of product photos, quotes, and “I’m so that guy” lifestyle shots, Harry’s comes across as super-relatable.

Key takeaway: Be aspirational, but accessible. There is a sweet spot between the two approaches that can build customer loyalty. The mix of stylized product shots, bright colors, and playful brand voice makes it easy for customers to connect with the brand.

 

@natgeotravel
National Geographic Travel: Inspire Awe

National Geographic Travel is the ultimate travel feed, with each photo more monumental than the last. Their Instagram strategy is simple: inspire serious #FOMO by serving up mind-blowing images of roads less traveled.

Key takeaway: Go big or go home. Source and post only the best images. NatGeo sources their content from top-tier photographers around the globe. Want a little inspo? Check out these incredible shots by Shutterstock’s top landscape photographer.

 

These companies all exhibit an unwavering commitment to ensuring that every image delivers on their brand promise. So how can you make your brand visually disruptive? That’s where Shutterstock comes in.

It’s not stock. It’s Shutterstock.

Shutterstock is an all-in-one creative platform that offers best-in-class visual assets, easy-to-use tools, and reliable support to empower how brands connect with customers.

Our extensive content library of more than 200 million assets is one of the main reasons why leading global brands rely on us for assets that are dramatic, unexpected, and, of course, high-quality.

We’ve also have developed tools that make it easier for brands to create memorable content. Our recent innovations include advanced search filters, next-gen “composition aware” search functionality, an Adobe plugin that instantly connects the entire Shutterstock library to your workflow, and a powerful mobile app that enables on-the-go creativity. In addition, we’ve created Shutterstock Editor, which makes it easy to size and customize images for every major social media platform.

Need more inspiration? Visit https://shutr.bz/ItsShutterstock to check out mind-blowing image Collections that show why it’s not stock, it’s Shutterstock.

This text has been written by Lisa Hurley.

Bauhaus 4.0 meets service & interaction design

Posted on by Slanted editors

Digitization and globalization are among the major economic and social contemporary issues. Can parallels be drawn to the upheavals of industry and society that made Bauhaus 100 years ago? Can we still use the utopian potential of the Bauhaus today to find ways of successfully leading the design of today into the future? How can we exploit the expansion of the fields of work of designers completed in recent years and not fall into the trap of diluting the design concept beyond recognition? How can designers help us to experience the changes in the world that accompany digitization and what contribution can they make to the humane design of the world? What is the correspondence to the demand for lifelong learning for a continuous education and training of professional designers and what actually helps us design theory in all these questions?

At the podium discussion on 26.3. In Bremen, we will discuss the role and the potential of Service & Interaction Design in times of digitization in a pointed and provocative way. Et al with Tanja Diezmann, Anne-SophieOertzen, Torsten Meyer-Boga, Torsten Stapelkamp and the two moderators Boris Kochan and Ulrich Müller. Welcome by Thomas Bade. An evening on a small scale for designers and design enthusiasts in the paper warehouse of Hansa GmbH & Co.KG—join in the discussions!

For more informations and tickets, visit: www.designtag.org.

When?

March, 26th, 2019
6:30 pm

Where?

Papierlager der Hansa GmbH & Co. KG
Heinz-Kerneck-Straße 8
28307 Bremen

 

Pulpo

Posted on by Floodfonts

Pulpo is a Clarendon style typeface with the skeleton of Century Schoolbook. Longer extenders give text a bit more air to breathe and improve legibility in small text sizes. Despite the strength and sturdiness of the design, each letter shape carries warmth and an echo of the human hand. The familiarity of the letterforms also conceals some nostalgia.

The family has 10 styles, ranging from Light to Black (including italics) and is ideally suited for editorial, advertising and packaging as well as web and app design. A massive body combined with low stroke contrast, emphasizing the horizontal elements, make it very suitable on screen and for small text sizes on newsprint paper. Each cut includes 489 glyphs with four sets of numerals and extended language support to meet the needs of today’s communication.

Foundry: Floodfonts
Type Designer: Felix Braden
Release: March 19th 2019
Styles: 10 styles, Light to Black (incl. Italics)
Price per style: 49$, family: 245$
Pulpo is 80% OFF until April 19th 2019

100 Ways to Move an A

Posted on by Slanted editors

The project “100 Ways to Move an A” by Ricardo Meyer questions the results-oriented design and puts the process in the foreground. It was created as a personal project in addition to a semester assignment at the FH Potsdam on the design of a dynamic character set. Since Ricardo was new to the field of motion design, he put the course task to his needs.

According to one of the guiding principles of Sister Corita Kent “If you work it will lead to something” the idea was sought in the design and not in the sketch. The result is the indefinite design of 100 moving characters. It invalidates the directly analyzing thoughts in the process and leads to new, unexpected results.

Typotable No. 1

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

Starting with Typotable №1, Berlin based type designer Ulrike Rausch will talk about her love for handmade craft and passion for sophisticated OpenType features. At her side, Sven Fuchs will give insights into his work as a type designer, his affection for typography in public spaces and his special interest in typographic history.

For further information and tickets visit: www.typotable.de

Typotable

When?
March 28th, 2019

Where?
Museum für Druckkunst
Großer Drucksaal
Nonnenstraße 18
04229 Leipzig
Germany

Texel

Posted on by Florian

Texel is a condensed brutalist display typeface that began life as a studio-io branding concept. Drawing inspiration from military bunkers, utilitarian architecture, as well as brutalist architecture.

Although the concept never made it to life, the notion of exploring brutal geometry through typography really stuck with them. Building within a robust grid the steadily typeface grew from a few characters into a full Latin typeface with accents. A pair of stencilled weights were then explored with stencil bridges following a single direction—horizontally or vertically.

The resulting typeface takes strong cues from the architectural movement of Brutalism, the typeface embraces ruggedness and rejects the need to be comfortable or easy on the eye.

Released in December 2018, and rolled out in three separate cuts—Regular, Horizontal, and Vertical, each with Italics—Texel is heavy, cold, oppressive, formidable, and makes no excuses for it.

Texel is available from Metis Foundry—a digital type foundry based in Melbourne, Australia. Posters and Specimens are due to be released soon.

Texel

Type foundry: Metis Foundry
Designer: Simon Bent
Release: December 2018
Styles: Regular, Horizontal, Vertical, each with Italics
Price: AU$ 40 per style, discount rates for the full family
Buy

Indiecon 2019

Posted on by Julia Kahl

One hall for publishing diversity: come the first weekend in September, over 70 magazines and small publishers from every corner of the world will be showing and selling their work at the Oberhafen in Hamburg. Some 4,000 visitors from the media, arts and creative industries will charge up their batteries with fresh design, new narrative forms and progressive ideas for distribution.

Year-round inspiration

The trade show has been held once a year since 2014, bringing together self-motivated producers of magazines, zines, comics, art books and other wonderful narratives. Die Brueder Publishing organises and curates the event. During Indiecon, new and established publishers can hone their abilities and skills and connect with an international magazine and publishing scene. 60 to 80 exhibitors present their work, revealing new aesthetics, narrative forms and production techniques. Independent publishers are joined by young publishing companies, agencies and studios as well as student projects.

Discover publishing diversity

Printed or digital, independent magazines and books are an important part of our free society. They give a voice to social movements, experiment with form and content, can spark off debates and bring little-noticed topics under the public gaze. The community of magazine makers joins forces at Indiecon with art book and zine publishers and with innovative independent publishing companies. Themes include literature and journalism, comics, illustration and pop, photography, architecture and popular science, politics, business and everything in between.

Sharing ideas with professionals

Experienced publishers, coaches and service providers from production, marketing or distribution unlock their toolboxes at Indiecon and share their market knowledge. As well as the professionals with their expert feedback, many readers and magazine fans come to the festival and pick up the publications – the magic moment for any publisher. They eyeball the magazines, zines and books, leaf through them, read them and provide valuable feedback. Do new ideas develop here? Certainly new reading relationships. At least there’s a good chance of finding something new at Indiecon that would otherwise lead a hidden life in drawers or backyard workshops.

Program

Three days of independent publishing – with music and play, snacks and sips.
Friday 6 Sept., from 18.00: Leisurely set-up, leisurely beer drinking, with press people
Saturday 7 Sept., 12:00 – 18.00: Serious networking, serious beer drinking
Saturday 07.09. 18 Uhr: Leisurely getting in the groove, party from 22.00
Sunday 8 Sept., 12:00 – 18.00: Trade show
Sunday 8 Sept., 18:00 – 20.00:  Leisurely take-down

Pricing

Admission as visitor: No charge, catalogue €5,–
Exhibitors: First table €50,–, each additional table + €100,–

EDCH—The Idea Salon—Review

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

For the first time the Editorial Design Conference EDCH took place at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen (HFF) in Munich from March 14th to 16th, 2019. We visited the conference to report about the event and on the other hand to present our latest publication Total Armageddon—A Slanted Reader on Design. Boris Kochan and his team once again managed to bring together the Who is Who in the fields of design, graphics, illustration, journalism, as well as the magazine and book industry and to inspire the interested audience.

Over three days, a full program with fantastic lectures offered the very best entertainment and showed the latest trends and news in the field of editorial design. Although it was impossible for us to see all lectures, we were able to get a good overview and we were impressed by the high quality and diversity of the speakers.

For us personally, it was also very exciting to get the first reactions to our new release Total Armageddon—A Slanted Reader on Design. In the upper floor of the venue, we were invited to share the booth of our great cooperation partner Druckerei Vogl, and had the opportunity to get in direct contact with the conference visitors. The feedback was great and very valuable. At this point we would like to thank you again for the invitation and the great support!

see-Conference

Posted on by Slanted editors

On April 13th, 2019 the 14th see-Conference takes place in the cultural centre “Schlachthof” in Wiesbaden. With over 1,000 visitors, the event has established itself as one of the largest design conferences in Germany. Besides focusing on data visualization, the see-Conference places a strong emphasis on sustainable concepts. For this reason, their speakers open up new perspectives of effective communication in their presentations, focusing in particular on the impact of today’s actions on the society and environment of future generations. The best in their field—they are visionaries who understand, live and actively advance our mission of fostering sustainability.

When?
April 13th, 2019
11 a.m.–6 p.m.

Where?
Kulturzentrum Schlachthof Wiesbaden e.V.
Murnaustr. 1
65189 Wiesbaden

Sofa Serif

Posted on by GHW

2017 Sofa Sans has been released by FaceType, now Georg Herold-Wildfellner has drawn Sofa Serif in 25 handmade weights and with a lot of glyphs.

Sofa Serif’s handcrafted character is friendly and eye-catching. Stylish features and alternates add personality and let you create unique logos and stunning headlines. The family boasts 5 weights from Monoline to Fat, each containing more than 1000 glyphs, plenty of OpenType features and full ISO latin 1 & 2 language support. In addition, extra shadow-, 3D-, inline- and hatched-styles round out the package. 7 font-styles are especially created to be used as layers/layered styles.

High contrast is one of Sofa Serif’s key features. To maintain a wide range of use, choose from two optical sizes: Standard and Display with a maximum of contrast especially in the heavier weights. This makes it a flexible solution for any display and editorial need.

Sofa Serif includes a variety of OpenType alternates which add uniqueness to your work. OpenType features include Swashes- and Titling-Alternates, Beginnings and Endings and a number of alternates within various Stylistic-Sets for even more variation. OpenType Swashes- and Titling-Alternates are smart features which automatically adjust all swashy letters to the available white space. Switch one on and let Sofa Serif do the rest. The font-guide “SofaSerif-FontFamily-and-OpenType-Overview” from the gallery will be included in your purchase automatically.

Sofa Serif is an organic, rough and decorative hand-drawn/handmade all-caps display-family for packaging, posters, book-covers, wedding-, kids-, food- and logo-design and will best stand out in huge grades. Its handmade origin is subtle yet visible.

Sofa Serif

Foundry: FaceType
Designer: Georg Herold-Wildfellner
Release: February 2019
Weights: 5 weights from Monoline to Fat in 2 optical sizes + extra shadow-, 3D-, inline- and hatched-styles
Single weight: € 24,–
Family: € 99,–

You can purchase Sofa Serif discounted til April 6, 2019, at MyFonts for only € 14,85

Design 360°–DESIGNMAG: DESIGNMAG

Posted on by Julia Kahl

For the first time in 13 years, one of the most influential design magazines from Asia, Design 360°, launched its special edition DESIGNMAG: DESIGNMAG on occasion of its 13th anniversary. During this time, it went through three phases of cover and editorial redesigns. Today, in the 21st century, new disciplines, new media, new culture, and new objects are continually evolving as well as developing, and so should magazines do: to everlastingly explore, to experiment, to go behind limitations, and to convey comprehensive experiences of design.

In this anniversary issue they invited five of the globally renowned magazines, namely IDEA, novum, Communication Arts, Eye, and Slanted, to join the issue in conversations, and to reminisce their history. We feel very honored to be among these great publications with an interview of Julia Kahl and with some comments about Slanted magazine from Verena Gerlach, Dermot Mac Cormack, and Magdalena Frankowska.

This is the first special edition of Design 360° in 13 years, the first issue to discuss such similar topics, and, more importantly, a milestone attempt for Design 360°. Design 360° will keep its fresh, bold, and edgy essence, to present design comprehensively and will grow together with readers.

360° Design—DESIGNMAG: DESIGNMAG
Issue no. 78

Chief Editor & Design Director: Joshua Wang
Cover Design: Javin Mo
Design Assistants: Antiny Wu/Human Cai
Editors: Lauren Luo/Yuer Bi/Yeeman Lin/Daan Chen/Leslie Z
Format: 18.3 x 25 cm
Volume: 164 pages + 2 cropped booklets
Binding: Open thread stitching
Print: CMYK + gold
ISSN: 1815-9222

For orderings, please email [email protected]

Passau Posters

Posted on by Slanted editors

The love for his hometown Passau, the love for exceptionally designed posters and the love for good typography inspired Manuel Kreuzer to this project. Starting in September 2016, he designed a poster every week about special cultural events in and around Passau—for a whole year: 52 “Passau Posters”; were the result! There was only one rule: no colors, no pictures. On the one hand, the graphic artist wanted to sound out limits: What surprises the viewer? Where are the limits of legibility? On the other hand, he wanted to show what is possible with strict typographical design—and it quickly becomes clear: That’s a lot!

The posters thematize various events around Passau: subtle art exhibitions, tough techno parties, big concerts and festivals up to classical opera—all events Manuel Kreuzer would go to himself.

This book is not a rulebook, but a source of inspiration and ideas. And above all, it is a book full of great writings! Manuel Kreuzer wants everyone to open their eyes to the subtle differences of all types of fonts: Use well-designed fonts and use them with all the sensitivity and attention they deserve.

Passau Posters

Publisher: August Dreesbach Verlag
Format: 16,5 × 24 cm
Volume: 128 pages
Workmanship: thread-stiching paperback
Price: 18,– €
Buy

 

Variable Emojis

Posted on by hannahwitte

Variable Emojis are the emojis of the future! Created as a Variable Font, they give the users over thousands of options to create an individual look with only one emoji.

The existing emojis form a world language which is indispensable in today’s digital communication. Don’t we have figurative emojis for everything and everyone? Unfortunately, we don’t! Figurative emojis are still reproducing traditional role models, race, and gender roles. We want to stir up these role models with Variable Emojis.

Users can choose between over a million of emoji variations to depict the reality of lives. It is done in a technically easy way by Variable Fonts. It will be possible to use these as font file in any digital keyboard.

Check out the Variable Font by yourself here!

Variable Emojis

Designer: Hannah Witte
Release: January 16th, 2019
Styles: 20 Master, 6 axes or 1,000 options per axis
Format: OpenType, OpenType Variations
Price one style and family: Available for free upon request

TOCA ME 2019

Posted on by Julia Kahl

The light flickers slightly, the babble of voices ends, a video starts on the screen, the loudspeakers roar. On 9 March, the Opening Titles impressively opened this year’s TOCA ME in the venerable, retro-futuristic Alte Kongresshalle in Munich. Over the years, the design conference has developed into an annual highlight in the calendar of events of the Munich design and creative scene. But it also has great appeal beyond the city limits, which can be measured above all by the illustrious selection of artists who report on their work. As in previous years, TOCA ME is sold out to the last seat.

The worth seeing Opening Titles “Morphegenesis” are written by motion designer Florent Schirrer alias Hello I’m Flo. In a dusty and crowded laboratory, a scientist works on the creation of a new being with the help of ancient software and various tinctures and instruments. The camera travels over full notes and glasses containing brains in formaldehyde. Between all these utensils are the names of the speakers, who will fill the conference day of TOCA ME with the presentation of their work.

Just as the opening sequence is about the creation of a new creature, the lectures also focus on the aspect of how the lecturers have developed their profile as designers. The first speaker was Anthony Burrill, a UK-based graphic artist who has become famous for his poster “Work Hard & Be Nice to People.” In his work, Burrill does not shy away from using a historical road roller in the letterpress, as he impressively demonstrated.

A highlight was the presentation of London filmmaker Anna Ginsburg. Ginsburg is best known for her animated documentaries and commercials for companies such as John Lewis. At TOCA ME she presented her short film production for last year’s World Women’s Day, which focuses on the development of women’s ideals of beauty from the Stone Age to the present day.

In his subsequent lecture, Evan Roth took the audience with him into an area that lies beyond the normally visible. Through technical hacks he shifted the color spectrum of his camera. The result is a world of red light that Roth deliberately presents in a decelerated manner. His lecture is particularly impressive because of the extensive research work that the artist has invested in his work. There was also great anticipation of Annie Atkins, who designed all the graphic props for Wes Anderson’s film “Grand Hotel Budapest.” She explained her approach rich in detail and absolutely entertaining. She also gave amusing insights where stumbling blocks lurked in the film production. With the lecture of James Paterson an extremely varied and exciting TOCA ME 2019 came to an end. 

Tag der Druckkunst

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

On Friday, March 15th, 2019, we will celebrate the “Tag der Druckkunst” (Day of the Art of Printing) for the first time. For one year now, the artistic printing techniques of letterpress, gravure, lithographic printing, silk screen printing, and their mixed forms have been officially recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage—awarded by the German UNESCO Commission. Because we as a publishing house feel that this day is essential for our profession, we would like to celebrate it with you. We gathered a little background knowledge and all the events that take place around the “Tag der Druckkunst” for you.

The Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig and the Bundesverband Bildender Künstlerinnen und Künstler (BBK) (Federal Association of Visual Artists) have initiated the application process for the inclusion of printing techniques. For more than 500 years, printed text and visual media have been an important part of European culture and society. Since 1500, copperplate gravure printing has been used for the production of print media, since 1800 also stone- and photoengraving as well as silk screen printing. In the middle of the 19th century, the transition from handicraft technology to industrial printing took place while retaining the basic principles. However, the craftsmanship was cultivated by artists, for example the artist’s group “Die Brücke” and the collage art of Dada. Since the end of the 20th century, traditional printing techniques have only been maintained and preserved by artists, printing workshops, and museums as well as by schools, art, design, and media colleges and adult education centers.

Therefore, the first anniversary is reason enough to contribute to the dissemination of the art of printing throughout Germany with a multitude of activities and to draw attention to its significance for culture. More than 240 organizers are invited by the BBK-Bundesverband to celebrate the “Tag der Druckkunst.” Here you get a detailed overview of all registered events in Germany, France, and Belgium.

Have fun celebrating!

Massimo Grafia

Posted on by gabrielrichter

Massimo Grafia is a linear-grotesque typeface in four weights, combining powerful hand-drawn forms with rigorous graphic precision. The neutral basic for professional use is supplemented by alternate glyphs, creating the scope for highly expressive typographic design: For all lowercase and uppercase letters and standard numerals at least five and in some cases as many as 14 variants are available. These can be selected and interchanged manually or automatically (OpenType support required). Massimo Grafia was designed by Gabriel Richter and Andreas Uebele.

Massimo Grafia basic is a well constructed, calm but individual grotesque for everyday use. Superior and inferior figures, tabular and standard numerals, fractions and symbols make it suitable for professional applications. At the same time Massimo Grafia opens the door to vibrant and expressive design.

During his scholarship at Villa Massimo in Rome, Andreas Uebele caught up with his correspondence, writing 250 letters by hand. Gabriel Richter took the extravagant forms of individual characters and expanded them into Massimo Grafia. In order to extend Massimo Grafia’s range of potential applications, Richter and Uebele subsequently hand-drew a basic typeface, establishing a calm backdrop for the various alternates. In addition diacritics and symbols were added. The outcome is a versatile and effective font with a distinctively hand-drawn style.

Massimo Grafia

Type foundry: nice to type
Designer: Gabriel Richter, Andreas Uebele
Release: March, 2018
Weights: Light, Regular, Medium, Bold
Format: Postscript und TrueType flavored OpenType-Fonts, Woff/Woff2
Testversion: Yes (contact through email via nice to type) 
Price one weight: 50.– Euro
Price family: 146.– Euro
Buy

Typographic Summer Program with Dafi Kühne

Posted on by Julia Kahl

Looking for a great way to spend your typographic summer? “Typographic Summer Program” with Dafi Kühne is an intense 2 week summer program in Switzerland for international graphic design students and professionals. It started in 2016 with one summer session over 2 weeks and established over the last 3 years to a 2 session summer program. The workshop’s goal is to bridge the gap analog design and production tools and professional contemporary typographic posters. The participants will go through a number of analog tasks to experience the layout qualities of simple type-only layouts. All the experiments and layout exercises will be realized with traditional letterpress printing presses and physical type. Through this very slow but accurate analog process the participants will learn to put emphasis on concept and micro typography. This program is a great opportunity for students to see and learn first hand from one of the few internationally successfull contemporary letterpress poster designers.

There are two sessions to choose from:
Session I: June 16–29, 2019
Session II: July 28– August 10, 2019

Application deadline for both sessions: March 29, 2019
Fee: CHF 1750.—

www.typographic-summerprogram.ch

 

16. Tag der Schrift

Posted on by Slanted editors

On April 6th, 2019, the 16th “Tag der Schrift” will take place in Zurich. The event will be opened by Jonas Schudel of the Schule für Gestaltung Zürich and will be moderated by Dominique Kerber. The program is divided into two parts: In the morning there will be lectures by Martin Wenzel (DE), Petra Beiße (DE), Mathias Truniger (CH) and Moiré—Marc Kappeler, Dominik Huber, and Simon Trüb. After lunch there will be workshops on various topics by the speakers.

You can find the complete program here.

Slanted raffles a ticket for the whole day + a workshop of your choice including lunch! To participate, simply write an email until 11.03. 2019 (UTC +1) to [email protected] with the subject “Tag der Schrift 16”. The winner will be drawn after the deadline and contacted by email. Who participates in the raffle, agrees to receive news from Slanted and accepts the privacy policy. Legal recourse is excluded. We wish you good luck!

Registration and ticket prices
The registration takes place online using the registration form. An electronic confirmation is issued.
Ticket for morning (presentations): 60,– CHF
Ticket for afternoon (workshops): 40,– CHF
Ticket for the whole day: 90,– CHF

Students and teachers of the Zurich School of Design (SfGZ) as well as Syndicom and Ver.di members receive a 50 % discount. Learners and full-time students from other institutions also benefit from a 50 % discount. The student card or the membership card must be presented at the entrance.

When?
Saturday, April 6th, 2019
from 9 a.m.

Where?
Schule für Gestaltung Zürich
Ausstellungsstrasse 104
8005 Zurich
Switzerland

Krautreporter newspaper

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

Krautreporter is an independent, usually digital magazine from Berlin. Its mission is to help its members to better understand the interrelationships of current events in politics and society. Everything online, fresh every morning, many well researched stories, which do not lose their topicality, but unfortunately disappear quickly from screen. As reasonable as it is not to produce wastepaper, there is less surprise as when you read a newspaper—you may find an article you haven’t looked for and didn’t know you were interested in.

Now they have done something old-fashioned, outdated, perhaps even antiquated: a newspaper edition with some of the best articles by Krautreporter, just like it was in the twenties, made by hand and printed with black and red ink. The idea came from Krautreporter member Erik Spiekermann, a German graphic and type designer.

After he had succeeded in restoring a Johannisberger high speed press from 1924 and making it operational again, it was their motivation to test the printing press on a real product. After he made some efforts at persuading in the Krautreporter editorial team, 5,000 copies were produced.

Unfortunately, the Krautreporter newspaper is not available for sale, but was reserved for Krautreporter members as a gift in July 2018. In the Krautreporter podcast “Verstehen die Zusammenhänge”; Martin Gommel talks with Sebastian Esser about the printed Krautreporter issue.

Photos: © Norman Posselt

Typeface of the Month: Temeraire

Posted on by Slanted editors

Everything but boring—Quentin Schmerber did not design Temeraire to make it invisible. It is conspicuous, and this is what it is supposed to be. Its obvious inconsistency in the cuts always brings surprises in all areas of its use. Temeraire shines with a colorful bouquet of 18th-century letterforms that bring a smile to the face of every typography lover.

Quentin Schmerber’s Temeraire serif font family was not designed to be invisible. It is a typographic exploration meant to be seen—with its beauty, one could even say beheld. While some fonts aim to be as easily ignored as possible, Temeraire is offered as a gift to wide-eyed readers with its anything-but-boring character and its conspicuous inconsistency in styles.

Most type families increase the weight of each character to expand the family. Instead, research into 18th century sources produced Temeraire’s wide range of letterforms, from the predictable to the odd and loosely related through time. Each style is designed to work alongside the others but are also standalone homages to specific parts of English lettering tradition: gravestone cutting, writing masters’ copperplates, Italiennes, and others.

Temeraire’s Regular style is a contrast-loving Transitional Serif with vertical stress, making it great for period and classic works, ironic pieces, and modern throwbacks. The weight of the Bold squares off the ends of each glyph to give it stability, and the italic style rings true: flowing, contrasting, and purposefully inconsistent.

Temeraire’s Display Black style is one salvaged from expressive gravestone artistry. The details most easily noticed are the ‘g’ with its descending bowl that has been pressed back up in the centre, and the additional serif on the ‘t’ crossbar that holds its neighbouring character at bay. (The ‘g’ and ‘Q’ have loopless alternates.) The final style is the Italienne, the horizontally stressed counterpoint to the family. By design its characters flow and bend in ways not in step with the rest of the family. All the weight has been pushed to either hemisphere within each glyph, resulting in a display style that demands space and peacefulness around it so its presence can impress.

Like all TypeTogether families, Temeraire’s five styles meet the current designer’s needs, including alternates for when the defaults are too boisterous. It works on screens for the audacious designer but truly shines in print. The Temeraire serif font family is resurrected from echoes in time and finds its family relation through impeccable taste.

Temeraire

Foundry: TypeTogether
Designer: Quentin Schmerber 
Release: 2018
Format: otf, eot, svg, woff, woff2
Weights: Regular, Italic, Bold, Display Black, Italienne Italic 
Price: from 31.50 Euro per weight, 158.10 Euro the entire bundle
Buy

Werde FC

Posted on by Das Hochhaus

The new member’s campaign of the FC Cologne is based on an individual script font family, which takes up the look of fan banners and, together with authentic texts, creates closeness and identification with the soccer club. Through the emotional and goal-oriented design of the Cologne based advertising agency Das Hochhaus, the communication of the club was brought back to eye level with the fans. This campaign is a good example of the great influence that target group-oriented font design has.

No heroic glossy pictures of expensive football players, no flat slogans, no expensive campaign, but something that was “noticeably different”: WERDE FC—actions that appeal to the fan’s heart because they let the fan’s heart speak. Why? Because the FC Cologne needs more members. It should be 100,000 within a year. By the end of the campaign, 108,000 had said: I AM FC.

Slanted in Dubai: Thareek

Posted on by Slanted editors

In Spring 2018 the Slanted editors took a close-up look at the contemporary design scene of Dubai. A city—when described by many people—that is all sickening shine and has no soul. But Dubai and the whole region, originally a piece of desert sparsely populated by Bedouins, is now transforming itself rapidly into a center, if not the world’s greatest center, of trade, finance, and tourism—and moreover, something important happened in the last few years: Culture! Today, a new Arab world is being plotted and planned. The entire Gulf is teeming with initiatives—from the most public to the most private—to change and reinvent seemingly immutable rules, regimes, edicts, and assumptions, culminating, perhaps, in the stated intention to work more closely together. The Gulf states have a past, and they will have a future. The contours of that future are legible in this Slanted issue!

Tahreek is a design and motion studio based in Dubai, founded by three Saudi siblings. It’s a multi-faceted studio that thrives on experimental form-making and conceptual construction. Exploring conceptual and design problems from multiple angles and transforming solutions into visual narratives. As a creative philosophy, experimentation and play are always a part of the creative process.

Take a look at the Slanted #32—Dubai to get an idea of Dubai’s creative environment. Additionally you can find several video interviews on our video platform to get a deeper insight in the designer’s thoughts.