Since its completion in 1887 the Royal Carré Theatre, situated on the bank of the Amstel river carries a rich history of hosting circuses, cabaret, vaudeville shows, stand-up comedy, musicals, ballet performances and concerts. The theatre’s posters – produced in-house after an overall design by Thonik – consist of a bright red background with simple typography in white. Similarly to the logo, the typeface hints strongly back to the style of advertising lettering of the early 20th century in Holland.

This unique requirement proved hard to satisfy with off-the-shelf typefaces. Existing fonts were either too light to properly obscure the images of the athletes, or lacked the tight letter spacing and small counter-forms desired for the typeface. The typefaces that did exist in the required weight range were consistently too comical in nature, lacking the mature tone necessary for the campaign. In other cases, the increased weight of a letter came at the expense of its legibility. The proper balance of weight, letter-spacing, tone and legibility resulted in the need to create a unique typeface specifically for SportBC.

Since the creation of the font for the launch of the ‘Everyone is an athlete’ campaign, the Everyone typeface has been used in a broad range of environments from print to web. The possibility of using the font on any computer by anyone involved with the SportBC brand ensures that every letter, word or phrase becomes instantly identifiable as SportBC. Every aspect of communication – from printed headlines to email signatures – becomes an opportunity to extend their brand.

Even the SportBC logo – derived from a lighter weight of the Everyone typeface – is an application of this idea. This creates a direct relationship between the SportBC logo and every word or phrase set with the Everyone typeface.

Much of this article was adapted from a post that appeared on Karacters blog.

Designer Dana Tanamachi recently completed a pair of labels for Nagging Doubt wine, based out of Okanagan Falls, British Columbia. While Tanamachi is well-known for her many examples of custom chalk lettering throughout NYC, I couldn’t resist posting this particular project out of local and personal interest. In a couple weeks I will be spending an annual weekend in one of Canada’s wine producing regions, the Okanagan, which happens to be where Nagging Doubt’s grapes are grown and bottled.

Tanamachi was hired by Vancouver studio Brandever to create the labels. Both feature a QR code that take you to a time-lapse video of her creating the chalk lettering which gives interesting insight into her process, including the scale at which she works. If this wine will not be stocked on the shelves of a store near you, links to both videos are below:

the making of ‘Viognier’
the making of ‘The Pull’

Kris Sowersby was commissioned by Muggie Ramadani Design to create the wordmark for Embassy, a luxury retailer based in Switzerland, with stores in Lucerne and St. Moritz. Embassy specializes in watches, gemstones and antique jewellery. Recently September Industry featured Muggie Ramadani’s studio, in particular the branding work for Embassy, be sure to check out their feature for more images.

The Embassy wordmark by Sowersby is paired with Neutraface 2 by Christian Schwartz, available from House Industries. Neutraface 2 is used throughout the identity collateral and is paired with Georgia on the Embassy website.

Muggie Ramadani Studio is a interdisciplinary design studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark. View more images from the Embassy branding at September Industry.

Kris Sowersby started the Klim Type Foundry in 2005, he is currently based in Wellington, New Zealand. His retail fonts include Feijoa, National, Tiempos and Founders’ Grotesk. The Klim Type Foundry markets its typefaces exclusively through Village.

Sans
Serving as the cornerstone of the family and the jumping off point for the rest of the typefaces, AW Conqueror Sans also features swash capitals, as commonly seen in Renaissance italics.

AW Conqueror Sans with swashes

Didot
Drawing inspiration from the ‘tight but not touching’ use of Didots in advertising and publishing the 1960s and 70s, AW Conqueror Didot is an ode to dry-transfer alphabets.

AW Conqueror Didot with swash 'A'

Inline
AW Conqueror Inline serves as an homage to Nobel Inline, a font designed in the Netherlands by S.H. de Roos in the 1920s.

AW Conqueror Inline

Slab
Drawing inspiration from geometrical slab serifs of the 1930s (the Rockwell era), AW Conqueror Slab is a slab-serif version of AW Conqueror Sans

AW Conqueror Slab

Carved
Five layering options (outline, shadow, shaded, solid, and all) can be combined to customize the appearance in this display face.

AW Conqueror Carved in various combinations

Because all the fonts are designed with a consistent width, they can easily be used in conjunction with one another, and swapped in and out.

Slab, Didot, Inline, Sans and Carved

For the Conqueror paper specimen, designer Seb Lester and photographer Thomas Brown were asked to create visuals using the typeface.

Design by Seb Lester

Photography by Thomas Brown

Typofondrie is an independent digital type foundry in France, founded in 2004 by Jean François Porchez.

Ondrej Jób recently created EDP Preon, a custom typeface for Portugal’s largest energy company, Energias de Portugal. The typeface was created as one component of a large identity redesign, completed by Sagmeister Inc., and made public last week.

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The rounded sans with stencil cuts was extended to six weights in both roman and italic, and applied to all facets of branding material.

EDP Preon character set

For a more comprehensive look at the entire new identity, visit Brand New.

For more information about Ondrej Jób, read our interview with him from January.

Why Not Smile designed the website for A Sustainable Future for the Exumas: Environmental Management, Design and Planning. Hoon Kim and Hyo Kwon created a custom ‘dot’ typeface for the homepage of the website. The project is a partnership between The Ministry of The Environment of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas in conjunction with the Bahamas National Trust and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Why Not Smile is a graphic design workshop in New York, focusing on design for art, architecture and cultural clients across various media: printed matter, branding, exhibition design, motion graphics, and websites.

How did you get into lettering and type design as a career? Did you receive formal training?

I started in lettering around grade 9, when my art teacher introduced our class to calligraphy. I bought a few books, including a Speedball Text Book, which had lots of great historical lettering samples with instructions on how to construct them. During high school I did certificates for the graduating classes, as well as sign painting for local businesses.

I went to Sheridan college for Graphic Design where we had lots of typography courses, which included the technical side of drawing accurately with ink. We were encouraged to be expressive with type, but we weren’t really tutored on the creation of original forms. So I guess my training was fairly informal.

How long have you been working? In what ways has your process evolved over time?

I’ve been working as a lettering specialist for 26 years. During that time, my process has changed mostly because of the introduction of the computer to our industry. This has allowed for much more exploration in a tighter format, which is good. One problem when you work in pencil sketches is that the transition from graphite grey into solid black doesn’t always work as you’d hoped. It’s also easier with the computer to test things out in their true setting, on top of photos or whatever. I still do lots of sketches, but the lettering tends to get really developed and fine tuned on the computer.

What are your major influences? What inspires you?

I’m influenced by just about everything, but I especially like the work that was done on packages from the 19th and early 20th century. I also enjoy amateur hand-lettered signs, since they often contain very quirky and original details that I would never think of. I have to mention that during college I saw a book with some examples of Herb Lubalin’s lettering work, and this was one of the moments that really made me want to pursue lettering for a living.

How do clients normally approach you? Do they have a specific vision in mind or do they work with you to develop the finished lettering? (Do they ask for a range of options to choose from?)

Almost all of my clients are designers or art directors, and the projects they send me arrive at my door in many different forms. Sometimes the client has a very good idea of what they want, but need me to work out the detailing and final execution. Other times they call me and give me a 2 minute brief on the phone with no visual reference and say “go”.

With some projects I get very thorough briefs where the client has specific directions that they want to explore, and they supply samples and supporting reference to guide the work. In almost every case I’ll show the client a number of options, and then we’ll develop the lettering based on their feedback.

How do you typically take on redesigns when the company has an extensive history (such as with a brand like Bell or Smirnoff)?

I take my cues from the client. Most projects that involve big brands tend to be evolutionary, in which case the history of the mark must be considered carefully. When I worked on the Smirnoff mark, for example, I had to maintain the arched baseline and colour scheme, but the client wanted me to create letters that were a bit softer and more broadly appealing.

Occasionally the brand needs a complete overhaul, and then I have to explore a range of possibilities based on the clients visual concerns and marketing objectives.

You have so many projects under your belt; do you have any favorites, or ones that you felt came together particularly well?

I’m very happy with the Miller High Life redesign, because it had everything; a brand with an impressive design history, decorative caps, formal script as well as various bits of supplementary type. All of these elements contained lots of tasty details which ended up working very well together.

Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art open in December 2010 in Doha, Qatar, the museum features contemporary Arab art and holds events that celebrate art by Arab artists. The identity design by the Wolff Olins features two custom typefaces.

The primary typeface used throughout the identity system is Mathaf by Pascal Zoghbi of 29 Arabic Letters. More specimens of Mathaf can be found on the 29 Arabic Letters blog.

“An ultra thin font lends “Mathaf” a contemporary corporate image. A strong tension materializes when the curvy pen strokes meet up with the sharp cuts and corners of the letters. A hybrid modern Kufi-Naskh Arabic letterforms complement an edgy lowercase Latin letters to present a unique bilingual Arabic–English type.”

A companion display typeface, Mathaf-Script was commissioned from Tarek Atrissi Design in The Netherlands. The display script references the handwritten forms of both Latin and Arabic, creating a script that is vibrant and spontaneous.

Brand New has an in-depth look at the complete identity system here and here. The custom typeface by Pascal Zoghbi can be seen in use on the Mathaf website.

Pascal Zoghbi, Arabic Type Designer and Typographer, is the founder of 29 Arabic Letters, an Arabic Type Design and Typography firm in Beirut. His design work ranges from creating new Arabic fonts, corporate identities and print publications. In 2006 he graduated from the Type & Media course at The Royal Academy of Arts in The Netherlands with a Master of Design. Since 2006, Zoghbi has been teaching typography and type design courses at graphic design schools in Lebanon; at the Lebanese American University LAU, and the American University of Beirut AUB.

Tarek Atrissi has worked and studied in Lebanon, The Netherlands, Qatar, Dubai and the United States. He Holds a BA in Graphic Design with distinction from the American University of Beirut; a Masters of Arts in Interactive Multimedia from the Utrecht School of the Arts in Holland and an MFA in Design from the School of Visual Arts in New York.

His work for the Criterion Collection features an array of custom lettering that is both modern and organic. The lettering for Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, for example, captures the violent themes of the film while incorporating elements of nature, such as small branches and flowers. Kellerhouse pairs his coarse, woodsy lettering with Electra Cursive Display, nicely offsetting chaos with control.

Kellerhouse also created a simpler, handwritten version, and wordmarks to pair with close-up photographs.