Typophile

Custom typeface for Stockolm

Johan Palme0 votes

Stockholm city council has launched a new identity system, replacing the current one which includes Karl-Erik Forsberg's 1961 seal and a rather 90s-ey (but good) visual look with a lot of airy Gill Sans.

The new identity includes a new logotype and a custom typeface, Stockholm Type, based on Swiss Typefaces' Euclid (which is one of those trendy "new clumsy" experimental geometric sans types), but significantly neutered here into something rather Museo Sans-esque. Not sure what it's supposed to say about Stockholm. There's little info on the new website (which has the new typeface as a web font, look a those numerals!) but it's apparently by Swiss Typefaces' Emmanuel Rey, with the identity by Essen.

Johan Palme0 votes

(Suffice to say I don't like it much. Wrong weight killing the impact of Forsberg's St. Erik in the logo. The typeface I'd like to see more of, especially in print, but it seems rather painfully on-trend without using the other things that make that trend sucessful.)

Hrant H Papazian0 votes

Like I said on Flickr*: Pissed androgynous royals rule. The font just can't compete.

* http://www.flickr.com/photos/hardwig/8697713013/

hhp

Johan Palme0 votes

Well yeah, at least they haven't killed hir. But it did work better with the old seal, now graceful geometry is teetering over into cartoonish geometry.

K Cerulean Pease0 votes

Well, I expect that if you're forced to live with it long enough, you'll start to like it.

Si_Daniels0 votes

Well, the Jack of Clubs certainly seems to be looking disdainfully at the type treatment.

Juergen Weltin0 votes

New ugliness and anti-design is trendy. But why? And what for?

Hrant H Papazian0 votes

http://typophile.com/node/101167

hhp

Johan Palme0 votes

But all of that has some sort of purpose, if only iconoclasm, purification and interesting visual rhythm. Here, though, they've taken the least interesting part of the design – the style of typeface, which isn't http://even* essential anyway – neutered it still futher by dropping the ubiquitous always-on medium weight, and placed it in the middle of a standard formula A1 brand identity. All of the other elements of anti-design are gone, rendering the type choice just awkward.

* Nice rotalics in this one. Anyone know what they are?

Captured from web.archive.org on 17 Aug 2017. view this capture