Typophile

Umbra/Verlag/Swift - contemporary 'versions'

dendicott

Hello all

Slightly odd question; I'm going in cold to a client briefing for a redesign of their annual research publication. Currently they use a combination of Umbra for headers, Swift for body and Verlag for anything else.

My understanding is they want a major overhaul but I don't know where they want to go typographically - so I'm fishing a little.

Can anyone make some alternate suggestions, pairing options or suggest contemporary 'versions's or fonts inspired by the above? I'm anticipating they may want to keep one or more to maintain branding - so if they retain Umbra (which is a big statement font) can you recommend options to pair with it?

Any thoughts gratefully received!

thanks

Hrant H Papazian

Major overhaul + zero project details = forget "versions of fonts inspired by the above".

Ergo: It's too early to nail down fonts.
If you need to appear highly font-savvy during your meeting, frankly it might too late. :-/ Get some details, buy some time, ask here again. But hopefully do give credit where due.

hhp

dendicott

yep taken onboard. Thinking here is really if they say we want to keep one of the set, my question is why change any of the others? The design is very much based on the use of the shadow of umbra (i.e. the sheared serif of swift) and the graphic elements are all based on that - so I wanted to have a convincing argument to make wholesale changes.

My thoughts at the moment is that given the art deco feel of the current set we move them on to the next decade of style fonts. I was thinking maybe an inline font like (H&F's) landmark might be one way forward.
Thoughts?

Nick Shinn

If the research text involves superscript references and footnotes, that should be a major consideration in choosing the typeface.

Andreas Stötzner

sorry but reading that briefing I can’t stand the temptation to throw in Lapidaria and Arthur.
both are recent designs.

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