Peter Verheul has designed a custom typeface for all forms of visual communications as part of the new brand identity of the Dutch government. They want to position themselves into society in a new way. There are currently 200 departments and ministries which all have different logos and use different typefaces as their brand identity.

From the beginning of 2008, Verheul was asked to take his typeface Versa and transform it into something usable for a larger audience. He changed the look and feel of the Serif version of Versa Serif and created a complete new set of letters for the Sans version. The fonts are named Rijksoverheid Sans and Rijksoverheid Serif – recognizable as “government” and used in every way of visual communication.

Rijksoverheid Sans will be used mainly for headings of text and in signage or wayfinding systems. Rijksoverheid Serif is used as bread letter for reading text. Verheul managed to finalize the fonts and released them in four different variations, from Regular, Italic to Bold in just less than nine months. At the moment, only the parties involved in the brand identity process have access to the Rijksoverheid typefaces.

Monotype Imaging is a leading global provider of text imaging solutions. WIth Vodafone UK, they are introducing a new way to personalize the mobile user interface on select mobile handsets. Monotype Imaging’s new FlipFont solution is accessible from Vodafone Live!

Vodafone becomes the first operator in Europe to offer downloadable, mobile-optimized fonts to replace the factory-installed, default font. FlipFont has a chance to launch fonts into the forefront of mobile personalization. Font choice provides an attractive avenue for one to customize their mobile phones to reflect their personality. FlipFont can empower consumers to personalize their own handsets with fonts.

FlipFont offers a selection of ten scalable fonts with typeface designs ranging from ITC Stylus font with its hand-lettered feel, to Musclehead. The FlipFont solution includes a utility that allows customers to “flip” to use a different font, or access additional fonts that can be previewed, licensed and downloaded. Additional fonts will become available on an ongoing basis.

One school of thought regarding the use of typefaces is the larger and bolder a message that is written, the more likely it is to be heard. However, getting the message across now requires more work and more imagination: illustrated type. The ultimate goal of legibility is achieved when the concrete letters become transparent, removing type from the transaction between author and reader.

However, studies have shown that there isn’t one typeface, or family of typefaces, that is more legible than another. Another approach is to build meaning through the aesthetic of the word itself. The role of display fonts, headlines and logos is to direct meaning in a particular way. By combining type with artistic and illustrative practices, designers separate meaning and word and examine what has been exposed until something catches their eye.

Experimenting with letter forms and turning them into pictures has been done often in the past but a new illustrative brand of typography is popular now because computers gave designers the tools to do amazing things with type. It has become an area of production that has been demystified. The current flourishing of illustrative type is about re-introducing the hand-drawn.

After a year of consulting with members of the Bowdoin community and working with a graphic design firm, the Office of Communications and Public Affairs hopes to have fixed the Bowdoin polar bear’s identity crisis in their selection of a new logo. The polar bear has been through many graphic incarnations in its 96-year tenure as Bowdoin’s mascot.

The new logo is intended to serve as a consistent and timeless graphic identity for Bowdoin College. The new logo was conceived by the Morrow Creative Group of Portland, Oregon, alongside committees of Bowdoin students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and depicts an anatomically correct polar bear, rendered in a stylized black line drawing.

A cropped version of the new logo features the head of the polar bear of the main logo encircled in a black ring. Additionally, an entirely new typeface was developed for use in conjunction with the new logo. The polar bear became Bowdoin’s official mascot in 1912. Its affiliation with Bowdoin athletics is especially strong and the polar bear is also the mascot for all aspects of the Bowdoin community.

Most people do not give the typography they spend large amounts of time reading on screen a second thought, even though the typeface we use can make reading more comfortable. Despite computer resolution increasing dramatically over the past 15 years, what we see on screen is no where near as clearly defined as old-fashioned ink on paper.

This is as a result of the horizontal and vertical lines, which display well on screen, are curved and diagonal, making them look pixilated and jagged. To counter this, Apple and Microsoft use font-smoothing tricks that use colors and shades of grey to smooth out the appearance. However, it makes letters look a little blurry but looks good on LCD screens – as opposed to on old CRT screens.

Font smoothing is automatically turned on in Mac OS X and Windows Vista but Windows XP users have to turn it on manually. Even with font smoothing, some typefaces are easier to read on screen than others for a variety of reasons. The more distinguishable each character is from another, the easier it is to read. For example, typefaces with serifs are not as popular online as sans-serif typefaces like Arial. In print, however, serifs work well but on computer screen simplicity (sans-serifs) are more important than elegance.