Handwritten for Migros

Zurich design agency Exxtra developed product advertising based on the idea of handwritten Post-It notes. Of course, having to write thousands of these notes would be a huge amount of work and would be very costly. Instead, Exxtra commissioned a working font based on the handwriting of their copywriter, Nina Tremi. Nina provided numerous samples of her writing which were digitized. Many of the characters have alternative variations and ligature forms to maintain the impression of a spontaneously written note.

Naturally, the handwritten samples could not simply be translated straight into a font; they needed to be modified and, to a degree, they needed to be unified to work as intended. Our designer Marc Weymann worked closely with Nina to ensure that none of the personality of her handwriting was lost.

Migros now has a great medium for their communications that reflects the spontaneous and youthful nature of their advertising campaign in all three major languages of Switzerland. The cost of creating the font has already been offset by the time saved producing the vast number of notes.

Dalton Maag Untangles Licenses

Getty Images planned to introduce a new font family to their identity - Lubalin Graph. The fonts needed some slight modification to suit their needs - the spacing tightened and the medium weight drawn a touch lighter. The main job, however, was not to modify the fonts but to untangle the nature of licensing.

Getty Images wanted to use a version of the font family that Bitstream published about a decade ago. However, for a variety of legal reasons this version is no longer available. Knowingly working on these fonts and supplying them to Getty Images would have left both us and our client open to legal action. After some negotiating with industry colleagues Jim Lyles at Bitstream and Mandy Beechey at Monotype Imagine, we agreed a licensing solution that satisfied all parties. Bitstream kindly allowed us to modify their data, whilst Monotype ensured that trademarks permissions and licensing are in place.

Dalton Maag has always respected the intellectual property of other designers and other companies; we never modify or sell a font without permission. Because our colleagues in the font industry know this, we have been able to provide our client Getty Images and others with the fonts they want, without fear of legal redress. And because we have the respect of our counterparts, this business was conducted simply and with little bureaucracy. Indeed a great day for fonts.

BT Vision is Clear

Yet again, BT has proved that you can apply good typography in media other than print. The fonts we designed for them earlier in 2006 have now also been successfully adapted and applied to BT's foray into digital TV services - BT Vision.

The V-box provides access to around 40 channels, plus on-demand programming. Naturally, a user interface had to be designed. A successful interface not only depends on intuitive interaction design but also on highly legible fonts. Together with Andrew Maddox, Creative Lead for BT Vision, we ensured that the fonts behaved correctly when displayed on different TV sets. The fonts are resident on the V-box and are rasterized on demand, giving BT complete flexibility. The fonts we designed and engineered specifically for this environment and were tested by Microsoft, who complimented both the design quality and legibility of the fonts. User feedback, too, has been very positive.

Dalton Maag understands that fonts today must work in a broad range of media. Our experts can advise you and create fonts for all situations. BT Vision is just one application that has benefited from our expertise.