FF Utility
by FontFont
Japanese Publication: Nikkeidai Campus Guide. Motoi Shito. 2014
Masterfully constructed type bike by Pentagram’s Paula Scher.
Via: design-is-fine:
Paula Scher, poster PUBLIC, 2012. USA. Via Cooper Hewitt
Selfie is a new script by Maximiliano Sproviero. This is a real standout in the current crop of scripts. It mixes vintage style with digital monolinear clarity. The round shapes will fit in well with popular fonts like DIN, Roboto, and Akkurat. And the distressed black font fits right into current trends.
(dailyspecimenから)
Multinational Typeface
This colourful alphabet has been designed for Grey Advertising’s new multinational team based in Singapore. It’s been constructed from the abstract shapes of over one hundred national flags.
These national elements have been broken down and imaginatively rearranged into a limited display typeface (see above animation). Many letters have several alternative characters to represent nations beginning with the same letter.
Although the alphabet currently represents just the 106 countries that the team operates in, according to the designer, Luis Fabra, the font is to be extended to include the other 90 countries. As no country begins with ‘X’ this has been left grey and I’d assume any forthcoming punctuation might use the same shade.
I love the inventiveness of the alphabet and how the flags have been interpreted. As part of a branding system the letters add a nice splash of colour without looking overly garish. It looks particularly good mixed with the silvery grey letters when used for the office signage system.
However, to really claim to to be a “multinational” typeface the next step must surely be to challenge the concept and see how the design might be adapted for Chinese, Devanagari, Arabic or other intentional system used by millions around the world.













