It's been on our minds for years that someone should design a grotesque sans serif font that is modernistic and so carefully executed across all of its styles that it has the potential to completely replace its competitors. The result of months of intensive and intricate work is Aktiv Grotesk, which is already attracting great interest from the design community. The font family's grand debut is in Naturalis 7, which features Aktiv Grotesk exclusively for an interview with Bruno Maag, our Creative Director. Naturalis 7 is released on 13 July 2010 and is available from GF Smith.

During the design process of Aktiv Grotesk we reviewed and scrutinized our work at every stage, starting with the very first few characters. With H O n o, which are used as key-feature characters, along with h p e v, we established the basic structures and proportions of the font, giving it its unique expression. Comparing our efforts to a number of competing grotesque designs we ensured that, in order to be successful, our interpretation of a pure grotesque was more distinct and more distinctive at every stage. Even the Italics, although a slanted design, have been carefully redrawn, paying particular attention to the rounded strokes. This attitude to high quality ensures that Aktiv Grotesk is an ideal choice for many print and screen-based projects.

Licences for the Aktiv Grotesk font family are available to buy online now for the Standard Edition; Greek, Cyrillic, and Corporate Editions will follow later this year. As with all Dalton Maag Exclusives we are happy to discuss any modification or licensing requirements you may have.

Parkinson's disease affects about 1 in 500 people, usually those aged over 50. The most outward signs of those affected by the disease are tremors and slow movement. Amongst better-known sufferers are Muhammad Ali, three-times world heavyweight champion, and Michael J Fox, US actor. Currently there is no cure for Parkinson's and it is a progressive neurological disease.

Parkinson's UK recently launched its new visual identity to help raise awareness and funds for its cause, and to provide assistance for carers and sufferers alike. Under the art direction of London design agency The Team we modified our Tondo to take on the appearance of a stencilled font. The stencil design communicates a community effort – that everyone can be involved in this movement. The typographic solution proposed by The Team enables Parkinson's UK and its supporters to promote the charity with immediacy and simplicity. Within just two months of the new brand being launched, Parkinson’s UK’s distinct voice contributed to a 16% uplift in new members and an 11% increase in the average value of donations.

Parkinson's UK is a non-profit organization and to show our support we reduced our fees so as not to stretch tight budgets. However, this did not diminish our commitment to giving the client the best possibly quality in font design.

A large part of the McDonald's brand message is conveyed by the packaging of its food. Responding to growing environmental awareness, the company has introduced new packaging across 117 countries which is not only made of recycled and recyclable materials, but also enhances the eating experience by showcasing the quality of the ingredients.

This use of modern, open, honest information and graphics, plus the use of raw ingredient imagery helps McDonald's start a conversation about quality with its customers, worldwide. The ultra-condensed, distressed font implies letterpress typography and therefore has a more hand-made, personal touch.

Birmingham-based brand design agency Boxer was responsible for creating the new McDonald's packaging, with the typeface designed by Dalton Maag helping deliver consistency and clarity. Initially, the font supported Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic, allowing the client to communicate in many of its customers' languages, but the second-stage development of Arabic proved a design challenge since there are no precedents for ultra-condensed designs for this script system. Collaborating with our Cairo office and Professor Rayan Abdullah we provided inventive solutions to the problem of dot placements above and beneath base Arabic glyphs, as well as elegantly negotiating tricky legibility hurdles.

The resulting multi-script font enables McDonald's to communicate with over 3.5 billion people across more than 75% of the world's landmass.