News from Sweden

Appsters

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:12:00 -0400

Appsters new website use a combination of Trim Poster and Siri Core. The wordmark is set with Trim Bold and the crab “Ray” also got a little trimmed.

THE ICONIC Men’s Magazine

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:27:00 -0400

Fresh from the Press. We just found out that THE ICONIC Men’s Magazine is using Trim for headlines. We’ll try to get a magazine shipped to Sweden to see more.

Steubenville Replies

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 02:50:00 -0400

We are very proud to have some of our webfonts involved in The Steubenville Replies website. Please don’t let the #Steubenville tweets go unchallenged. Instead – write a response! The people behind this project are the brilliant trio Martin Löfqvist, Jacob Åström and Isak Burström.

Trim + Siri = Favorites

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 03:21:00 -0400

This year Trim was selected as one of Typographica’s Favorite Typefaces of 2012. Last year Siri was on the very same list so it seems we are doing something right. Typographica is a review of typefaces and type books, with occasional commentary on fonts and typographic design. Edited by Stephen Coles.

HD.se – Helsingborgs Dagblad

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 02:01:00 -0500

Helsingborgs Dagblad (HD) is the prominent newspaper of Sweden’s fourth largest city. Founded in 1847, in 1892 it took the step to become one of the first daily papers in Sweden. Fast-forward to 2013, wherein HD took the step from using Arial to Siri for the digital edition. Check out the brand new responsive HD.se on your desktop, phone and tablet – a development we can get behind.

HD.se

Yes, we judge books by their covers

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:45:00 -0500

Nina Stössinger just sent us this wonderful book cover design of hers. Much to our delight, she chose Siri. Not only does Nina design book covers using tasteful typefaces, she is also a great type designer herself.

Title: Carmen perpetuum. Ovids Metamorphosen in der Weltliteratur

Lassila & Tikanoja

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 06:49:00 -0500

Lassila & Tikanoja is a service company that cooperates with its customers to transform our consumer society into an efficient recycling society. They operate in Finland, Sweden, Latvia and Russia. For branding and advertising they use Trim Regular and Trim Bold together with a customized headline version of Trim Bold. The identity was carried out by Matt Squire, formerly of Motley.

Overview of the visual identity

English version of website

Finnish version of website

Spreads from the Annual Report of 2012

Siri 2.0

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 14:53:00 -0500

One and a half year ago we published Siri by Göran Söderström, our very first typeface family which started our exciting journey in the type industry. Today we announce version 2.0.

To be honest, version 2.0 is not very different, but there are some nice new features and improvements we could write a little about.

The alternate R
Siri already has a bunch of OpenType alternate letters, like a, g, t and l. By putting them in different stylistic sets it’s very easy to activate them for whole paragraphs, individually, or all at once.

The idea for the R with a curved leg was in the original sketch. Then somewhere along the way it just felt more appropriate to straighten it out. Last year we were asked to make a customized R for the Bergman’s Video logotype and that really turned out nice, so we decided to include something similar in the 2.0 version as a little bonus glyph. The new R is available by activating the stylistic set 05.

The baseless one
Next new feature is actually a request we got from a user and we liked the idea so much that this variant of the number one is included in all the 16 styles of Siri. It makes sense when using numbers in display purposes, while the regular glyphs works well in text settings. Siri has 4 different styles of numerals: lining proportional, lining tabular, oldstyle proportional, oldstyle tabular and now it also has a alternate one, both as lining and old style version.

The Turkish Lira
The currency sign of Turkish lira was created by the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey in march 2012. The new sign was selected after a country-wide contest. We decided to include it in the 2.0 version of Siri.

Ligatures
Besides these new features, we have also improved the typeface by making small adjustments to the ligatures. They were not quite 100% right so we redrew them a little. It was mostly about making the prolonged f a little better balanced and some spacing adjustments.

Kerning
Lastly, the overall kerning is improved with the goal that the user should be able to type right out of the box and it should simply look great! We know that kerning and spacing is a matter of personal taste but we’ve really tried hard to make a good product here.

We hope you enjoy the 2.0 version of Siri. We will be shipping out the updated fonts free of charge this week to all customers who has licensed desktop- and webfonts directly from our website. We will also ask our distributors to spread the news and invite their customers to re-download the fonts to get the update. Fontdeck users will get the update automatically once we’ve updated the webfonts.

In the footsteps of a 1920s signmaker

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:10:00 -0500

I’m not certain when I first saw a photo of Kumla Skofabrik, an old shoe factory in Kumla. Maybe it was when I bought Kavat shoes to my daughter or perhaps in a conversation with colleagues about Swedish factory buildings. Either way, I fell instantly in love with the beautiful letters on Kumla Skofabrik, and decided to make a typeface inspired by them. First, I needed to investigate to find out more.

Kumla Skofabrik

I contacted a local real estate company, the Shoe Industry Museum and the Kumla Municipality in search of who drew the letters, and when. I managed get some useful help from Göran Ekberg from the Kumla Municipality. He told me the building was from 1912 and that the letters were first seen in photos from 1920, guessing they were drawn during those years. Unfortunately, nobody seem to know who drew them. Perhaps drawing letters in 1920 was more of an anonymous trade compared to what it is today but I had hoped to chat about the project with the designer’s family, assuming the author has passed away.

Skofabriken Rex was another shoe factory nearby. Photo: Kumla kommunarkiv.

Evening train
Three days before New Year’s Eve I decided to visit Kumla to visit the factory. I had seen the letters in various photos, but as I had already decided to make a font based on them, I needed to see them firsthand. Maybe there were some details only visible on location, or maybe the building would talk to me in some mysterious way.

Kumla train station.

I have a little daughter keeping me awake at night, so I took the evening train and booked a hotel room at Stationshotellet. I figured I could squeeze in an undisturbed night full of sleep since I would be away for a day or so. If you’re a parent of small children, you know how nice a quiet hotel room can be.

I was one of very few passengers leaving the almost empty train when it stopped in Kumla and I went directly to the hotel for check-in. Stationshotellet was only about 100 meters from the train station. The staff asked me when I preferred to have breakfast and told me I could have it anytime as I was the only guest. I slept like a baby and did not visit the night club on the backside of the hotel, despite the staff recommendation.

Stationshotellet.

The search began
The morning after I enjoyed the breakfast buffet they had set up for me and went out in search of Kumla Skofabrik. I passed the city center and reached the yellow building after about 15 minutes. The black letters looked majestic on the building and I stared for a while before trying to catch the best of them with my camera. I’d estimate the letters to be about 1 meter high with a total length of 20 meters, give or take. For a while I considered climbing up on the roof of a car to get a better angle with the camera, but I didn’t.

Closeup of Kumla Skofabrik.

On the way back to the train, I passed the Shoe Industry Museum to have a quick look and perhaps ask some questions about the shoe factory. It was closed.

The “shoe guy” guided me above the rooftops to the closed museum.

I couldn’t wait to draw out my ideas. The train ride back to Stockholm became an intense drawing session. I never sketch on paper, but this is where one of those cool hand-sketches with comments and arrows would go. Instead let’s skip directly to the digital design process which has the same purpose but I find more effective, as the letters will end up there anyway.

Digital sketches.

I had some luck from the start with this project. In KUMLA SKOFABRIK there are quite a lot of key letters. K, S, O, R for instance, are good starts for other missing characters. The letters had typical Art Noveau details in B and R, where some crossbars slope downwards to meet the stem, but in my eyes it also looked quite modern. Not as ostentatious as Art Nouveau can be, these letters appear more robust and presented a stronger visual language for an industry, fitting for a factory.

Key letters K, S, O, R.

Design = Decisions
Rather soon I had to make a decision. Should I completely modernize it and make it super consistent or should I let it be consistently different, just like the letters on that building? I went for something in between for the main typeface, and to complement I will probably use OpenType stylistic sets to swap in some more decorative variations and maybe even some inconsistent glyphs.

Some of the inconsistencies.

There was something weird going on with the B and R, compared to the S. On S, the top bowl was circular and the bottom bowl was square. On the B both bowls were based on a square, and the R also had a square top but they were both different when looking closer. To be honest I think that B is looking a bit off so one of the main decisions to take was how to approach these details. I really liked the concept of combining an rounded top with a squared bottom and decided that would be one of the rules to build the typeface upon.

Tracing the S.

Rounded or square upper bowls? Sketches.

Sketches for more consistent letters with round top and square bottom on B, S, R.

Even though the 6 and 9 may look weird I made no exceptions to that rule but wished there had been some numbers on that building too. I’m not sure the numbers would look like this if they had been drawn in 1920 by the original designer.

Numbers sharing the same concept.

To separate the O from the zero, the O is square while the zero is round, as are the C and the G. The U is square, to give the typeface strong dynamics and it’s also in line with the original lettering.

Sketching out differences in O, C, U, G and zero.

Spacing the font
The original KUMLA SKOFABRIK is very tracked out on the building and after some spacing tests I decided the typeface should inherit this approach. Therefore, the new Kumla font will have loose spacing out of the box. Those who like tighter tracking will have to adjust this, or commission a custom version.

Top: Original letters. Below: Digital typeface with different spacing.

During the development of this typeface I realized this font could very well work as monospaced. Looking at the original words on the building, it could infact have been the original designers intention but I decided not to so in the end.

The Kumla font is now available for print and screen (January 12, 2013).

Kumla is Letters from Sweden’s first release in the “Fabrik Suite” — a project inspired by Swedish industry, factories, harbors and other findings we may stumble upon. We are constantly looking for more inspiration, so if you have seen any interesting letters in Sweden you would like to see end up as a high quality typeface for print and screen, please get in touch and we could make it happen!

Trim Poster

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:54:00 -0500

In case you missed the news, just before Christmas we released a new addition to the stable: Trim Poster. It’s an expansion (and compression) of the robust Trim family. For this release, we made a special campaign site to explain the features and display the webfonts.

P.S. Check out the PDF for some experimental stylistic sets.

Trim riding the waves!

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:08:00 -0500

Cold Hawaii PWA World Cup consists of 48 of the World’s best male windsurfers, all of whom compete for both cup points and the title as World Champion in Wave Performance. It’s refreshing to see Trim being used in a wetter environment.

Photo: John Carter, Press photos

Bandi chose local fonts

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:00:00 -0500

Bandi (AB Bandindustri) is a swedish company that started 1938. Bandi develop and manufacture textile tape products and solutions of the highest quality. They supply everything from standard tapes to complete technical solutions for their customers, no matter the size or location.

When designing their new website, they did a client survey and found out that the local roots were important. Therefor they decided to use a swedish typeface reflecting the high quality of their own products.

Dagny and Siri were up for suggestion before finally settling on Siri. The website using the screen optimised Siri Core is designed in-house by Per Olsson and David Skoghäll.

Say “Hej” to Patch!

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 05:32:00 -0500

Patch Hofweber is an expatriate ’merican and is in Sweden for the long (cold, dark) haul. Born in ’88, he’s the young gun and has a passion for the open web. In addition to typography & lettering, Patch is a connoisseur of falafel, craft beers, and cycling. His debut in proper type-design is upcoming Trim Poster with Göran, and 2013 holds promise of more. News about Trim Poster is soon to come, but for now let us welcome Patch to Letters from Sweden!

Photo: Victor Olausson

TRIM in FORM

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 08:56:00 -0400

Latest issue of Form, Magazine for Nordic Architecture and Design, invited Trim as guest typeface. The magazine is designed by Cecilia Lindgren and is also using two other swedish typefaces, Berling Nova and Berling Nova Sans.

Vart är vi på väg?

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 06:37:00 -0400

The postman just delivered this kärleksförklaring from a secret admirer in Southern Sweden. As lovers of letters, we love love-letters with lovely letters. Our penpal used Trim SemiBold to make a custom stencil for spraypaint purposes.

“Vart är vi på väg?” translates to “Where are we headed?.” It could be a politically charged question, or perhaps just a reference to a popular Swedish game show.

Monoline Script for Rodeo Magazine

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:32:00 -0400

Monoline script designed by Göran Söderström and Stefania Malmsten for the redesigned swedish fashion magazine Rodeo Magazine. Work in progress.

Music from Sweden

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:33:00 -0400

Monde Idéal is Alexander Sjödin and Andreas Löf Hermansson. To record their first song, they filed for a bank loan in order to hire a string section. The result is compelling to say the least.

The track “Future Waits” from this swedish duo is featured on forthcoming compilation Kitsuné Maison 14, out on October 15th!

Nils Jarlsbo is the band’s graphic designer. We expect to see more beautiful use of Siri when more music is born by Alexander and Andreas.

Carved in Stone

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 15:59:00 -0400

Exemplar is a typeface that Göran Söderström started drawing in his twenties (1994) but never reached the market until 2009. It was first published by PSY/OPS but is now a part of the Letters from Sweden library. Exemplar was inspired by a lot of typefaces, including stuff that was carved in stone thousands of years ago. Today, in 2012, Exemplar is also carved in stone and will last another thousands of years.

An example of an uppercase “G” and “A” carved in granite and infilled.

The Garda Memorial Garden, or Gairdín Cuimhneacháin an Gharda Síochána, is located in the heart of Dublin city. This memorial is a contemplative garden with large stone plinths and a lot of names and numbers. The list of names, this “roll of honor,” records individual police officers (gardaí) who have lost their lives violently and tragically in the line of duty since the formation of the Irish state in 1921.

Detail showing the carved dual-language granite plinth leading into the memorial garden.

The stonecutter placed full-sized printed sheets onto the stone before carving.

The letterforms in Exemplar Pro have a roundness and rhythm that I liked, as well as a slightly calligraphic or hand-drawn quality. I wanted to avoid typefaces that were coldly geometric or mechanical. I was dealing with the names of people who had died tragically.

Excerpts from Typography Carved in Stone written by Anne Brady for Smashing Magazine. Please read the full article, it’s very carefully composed as Anne describes each step in the process.

All photos by Anne Brady.

Exemplar is available from our online font store.

Bergman’s Video

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:18:00 -0400

Bergman’s Video is a television series about Ingmar Bergman’s own private collection of Video films. The series is packed with exclusive interviews with film makers such as Woody Allen, Robert de Niro, Francis Ford Coppola and Ridley Scott.

The title sequence are designed by Stefania Malmsten together with Göran Hugo Olsson. Type used is Siri with a custom R and some modifications done to fit the animation.

All other text uses the regular version of Siri.

Trim in use

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 07:38:00 -0400

It’s a pleasure seeing Trim Light and Medium used on Thijs van der Vossen’s new website.

Please share with us how you use our typefaces, we love to see more of our fonts in use.