The Edit: five new projects including TYPE PLAY #6 by Two Times Elliott

Each and every day, we're lucky to discover dozens of interesting and inspiring projects from around the world. From global identities and campaigns to side projects and independently published books, The Edit is home to five of them; every two weeks.

Continuing the studio’s endeavour to toy with the distinctions between physical and digital, London-based design consultancy Two Times Elliott have taken on the brief set by Copenhagen-based foundry Playtype as #6 in their TYPE PLAY billboard series. Finding themselves in the same semi-digital lifestyle that lockdown has granted the public, Two Times Elliott sought to challenge this with their billboard – proudly proclaiming ‘offline.’ Whilst existing in an analogue form, however, the artwork has a digital side – where it can be digitally interacted with through the Artivive augmented reality app. When viewed through your device the artwork somewhat liquifies, conceptually akin to one’s fluid daily routines between physical and digital spaces. The billboard is on display at Playtype’s Copenhagen office between the 9th February and the 22nd March 2021, with the corresponding app freely downloadable.

Created for Oscar Oliva’s high-end candle brand Casa Forastero, Mexico-City-based designer and typographer Andres Higueros has developed AH FORASTERO – a bespoke display serif typeface that combines modernity with a bucolic charm inspired by Egyptian Spur typefaces made at the turn of the 20th century. “This style takes us to a rustic era,” Higueros explains, “these typefaces were used in paintings and sculptures that, due to their finishes and details in letters, gave an elegant touch to each piece.” Maintaining this element of nostalgia, it elegantly contrasts with Oliva’s contemporary design for the packaging of the candles. Looking at the biggest challenges he faced in AH FORASTERO’s construction, Higueros recalls the issue of kerning. “It is a work that needs a lot of time, good eye and patience,” he concludes, “setting the kerning took me like three months while doing printing tests and checking the space in different platforms.”

Keeping alive a sense of Mexican tradition and craftsmanship, Querétaro-based designer Yazmín Salgado has created the identity, naming and packaging for Maltasanta craft beer company Nacional Cervecera®, also based in Querétaro, México. Highlighting a sense of origin, history and process in their design, Salgado customised Nimbus Sans alongside vivacious, eye-catching colours and editorial expertise. With a delicate balance of modernity and heritage, Salgado’s work seems radiant; a feeling that we too are basking in the Mexican sun – capturing not only an innate characterisation of the beer but also a distilled sensation of its country of origin.

Solidifying themselves firmly within the contemporary architectural identity scene, residential property project Westport has found its name and a fresh face courtesy of Toronto-based creative agency Vanderbrand. Determining a minimal and typographically refreshing brand, Vanderbrand kept things clean but characterful with their liberal use of white space and a uniquely cut wordmark, whilst simultaneously acting somewhat referential to the Bauhaus due to its lowercase setting. Dynamically applied across a range of digital and printed ephemera, with distinct principles of sustainability at their core throughout the production, the identity maintains an editorial-esque presence; from the subtlety of their debossed binder to their muted digital colours. With all this in mind, the identity achieves what it set out to do; harnessing youthful energy to attract younger buyers and renters.

In line with the studio’s ethos for merging ethics with aesthetics, Portland-based creative studio House of Gul has crafted the identity for Oregon non-profit Foundations for a Better Oregon (FBO) – an organisation that advocates for children’s education. Including a brand, website and campaign, House of Gul has utilised charmingly crude organic shapes alongside similarly natural and striking colour; harnessing an infinitely flexible and overtly structural editorial grid to work on. The contrast of the rigid grid with the childlike mark-making results in a beautiful contrary harmony that leaves one both joyful and intrigued. This innate optimism and precious naivety compliment the elemental empathy help for the local communities that FBO cares for; crafting wonderful design for an equally as wonderful cause.