Dear All,

Living in Japan I often see these two logotypes and I am curious as to what fonts are used.

The first sample is from Takashimaya, our department store of choice here in Osaka and is the main logotype used in their branding and packaging. Takashimaya use a wide range of other fonts in their website and printed materials, although in my opinion none of them have the warmth and character of the one here. Sorry about the poor sample - it’s a photo of a sticker on a bag of rye bread! Please take a look at www.takashimaya.co.jp for another sample (although this font is not used widely there). It has similar qualities to FF Roice but very different letterforms.

The second sample if from au by kddi which is a mobile phone carrier here (www.au.kddi.com/index.html). The ’au’ is the main logotype and is commonly used as white characters on an orange background. I see this logotype very very often and it always bugs me as to what the font is. It looks like one of the heavier weights of Lucas de Groot’s ’The Sans’ family - a sort of straigtened up version of the italic ’a’.

I look forward to you putting my curiousity at ease!

Grant Dunlop