News

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We are super proud to announce our type family Guyot, designed by Ramiro Espinoza, has been awarded with a Certificate of Typographic Excellence by the prestigious Type Directors Club.
Guyot will be included in the Annual of the Type Directors Club, The World’s Best Typography, and will also be shown at the 64th Awards Exhibition (TDC64) in New York City.
Beside this New York event, it will also be included in 8 identical exhibitions that will tour dozens of cities in the Unite … > Read article

I met Piet Jacobs in November 2017, during the Dutch ‘art of the book’ fair (Boekkunstbeurs) in Leiden. He was in one of the stands, selling a compelling selection of fine Dutch type specimens and booklets. I noticed among them A tot Z, the rare autobiography of Paul H. Rädisch, the famous punchcutter of Jan van Krimpen’s typefaces. After a brief conversation, I purchased the book—a fine green clothbound volume.
It was only when had I arrived home and had time to begin r … > Read article

Five months after the release of Guyot Headline, Retype proudly introduces Guyot Text, a new installment of the type family inspired by the work of the sixteenth-century punchcutter François Guyot.
Ramiro Espinoza first got acquainted with Guyot’s work in 2016, while attending the Expert Class in Type Design at Antwerp’s Plantin Institute of Typography. His Guyot is not a strict revival, but rather a contemporary type family that combines the charm of classic French-Flemish … > Read article

On Thursday, June 22 at 18.30, Ramiro Espinoza will talk about his time at the Plantin Institute of Typography and his research on the types of lesser known punch cutters such as Joost Lambrecht and François Guyot. Reviving Guyot’s types as part of this experience led him to begin learning the art of punch cutting itself.
Letter Exchange Amsterdam’s 8th talk is hosted by:
Café de Bieb
Saenredamstraat 32, Amsterdam
Letter Exchange is a society founded in London in 1988 … > Read article

Guyot Headline is the first of two type families inspired by the work of the punchcutter François Guyot, who lived and worked in Antwerp during the sixteenth century.
Ramiro Espinoza got acquainted with the work of Guyot in 2016, while attending the Expert class Type design (EcTd) at Antwerp’s Plantin Institute of Typography. Researching French and Flemish punchcutters with the prospect of creating a revival, Espinoza soon realized that the work of the most important masters o … > Read article

In November 2016, Singapore Airlines opened an pop-up Gallery at Hobbemastraat 3 in Amsterdam. Agency Hammerfest.co designed a campaign to promote the occasion. They chose our Krul as the main typeface in their work.
The campaign’s logo was later hand painted on Singapore Airlines gallery’s windows by Miranda Ensink, a member of the Amsterdam Signpainters group.

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2016 brought us many opportunities to team up with the Amsterdam Signpainters crew and recreate Amsterdam’s traditional traditional curly script known as Krulletter.
Our work helped to launch Proeflokaal ’t Kelkje, a liquor store founded early last year on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in Amsterdam. The company’s owner was interested in a logo with a typical old Amsterdam look so we designed some lettering which was skillfully hand painted by Jasper Andries on the store windo … > Read article

In the context of Frank Blokland’s PhD research at Leiden University on the origin of patterning in movable type, the Meermanno Museum will host on 10 of October a serie of short lectures by Frank Blokland, Lukas Schneider and Ramiro Espinoza.
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ReType Foundry proudly introduces Brinkhuis. This typeface is a liberal interpretation of the Art-Deco lettering found on several facades of the famous avant-garde Betondorp neighborhood located in Watergraafsmeer, Amsterdam. The original letters were probably designed by the Dutch architect Dick Greiner.
Paula Mastrangelo fixed many inconsistencies in the original model, completely redefined several letters, added punctuation marks, and turned a simple alphabet into a striking t … > Read article

On Amsterdam’s west side is De Gouden Hoek, a chic fish & chips restaurant. Seton Beggs and Jochem Ruijgrok of local design agency Studio Bar were charged with designing a new graphic identity for the space. Determined to contribute to the city’s noble sign painting tradition, they designed a window sign in the distinctive local style. Studio Bar consulted with Ramiro Espinoza to ensure authenticity, making the final sign as beautiful and true to the krulletter originals … > Read article

In 2014 we presented Paula Mastrangelo’s first type family, Laski Slab. Over the last year, Ramiro Espinoza worked to expand the system and today we are proudly introducing Laski Sans, a refined humanistic sans addressing many of today’s design requirements, and specifically optimized for editorial and corporate use.
Laski Sans is a family of 20 fonts with weights finely balanced so that they can be easily combined in a wide range of environments. Its open forms and solid str … > Read article

In the second number of 2016, Monocle magazine has published a well informed article telling the story of the Amsterdamse Krulletter’s origins and our efforts for preserving and reviving the tradition. Thanks a lot to Marie-Sophie Schwarzer and ‪Monocle’s team for bringing attention to this topic. Thanks also a lot to Studio Bar and Jasper Andries from Amsterdam Signpainters for your design inputs and hard work.
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Few months ago the identity agency Design Bridge Amsterdam contacted us for an assignment. Their office was recently renovated and – in accordance with their appreciation for local crafts and traditions – they wanted to recreate Amsterdam’s curly letter in a series of words to be painted on the doors of their meeting rooms.
Design Bridge Amsterdam’s building was once a stable. As a nod to this history each meeting room was named after a horse breed: Chesnut, Bay, Roan, St … > Read article

Becky Chilcott from Chil3 has amused us again with a beautifully designed book by author and journalist Susan Maushart. This Little World is Perth’s Presbyterian Ladies’ College (PLC) centenary book. Although it has a fairly formal structure in terms of its 11 chapters, every page engages the viewer with different standout images, stories and factoids. The spirit of camaraderie, innovation and achievement are strong elements throughout the book in line with PLC’s 100 year h … > Read article

Simone Massoni is an Italian illustrator with a deep appreciation for typography. He runs the website chicksandtypes.com where he likes to pay homage to some of his favorite fonts. In past months well known typefaces like Meta, Archer and Matrix – among others, have been interpreted pairing each font with the illustration of a sensual woman that – in Massoni’s view – embodies the typeface’s attributes.
Last month it was the turn of our font Tomate and Massoni cr … > Read article

Few days ago Ramiro was invited by Design Bridge Amsterdam to talk about his research on the curly script of Amsterdam and how vernacular letters can be used in contemporary identity systems. Many thanks to Zayne Dagher, Marguerite Rubens and the rest of the Design Bridge team for a wonderful evening.
More information: http://www.designbridge.com/at-the-bar-with-ramiro-espinoza/
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Ramiro Espinoza has recently delivered a workshop on sketching ‪Krulletters‬ at Amsterdam Signpainters’s headquarter. Drawing letters is hard work but at the end of the day, all sketches looked much more refined. We hope the AS team enjoyed it and that soon they will be able to draw and paint krulletters as good as the ones produced by Visser and Beukeboom.
Here you can see some images of the workshop.

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We are fans of the Amsterdam School and at least once a year we pay a visit to Het Schip, the museum dedicated to this avant-garde movement.
Last time we were there, we found this fine publication dedicated to the architect Eduard Cuypers. Its designer, Joep Pohlen from Polka Design chose Kurversbrug as the cover and headlines typeface and of course we think it was the right decision. 🙂

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Emergo is an interesting report on Amsterdam organized crime published by Boom Publishers. The book was designed by René van der Hooren making intensive use of our font family Krurversbrug. Much appreciated, René. We love to see book designers making good use of our fonts.

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Another great project using Kurversbrug: Sander Pappot from Zender.nu studio has redesigned the identity of the Amsterdam’s club Wester Unie and the new image looks wonderful!
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In this post at Behance you can take a look to some of the steps in the production of a recent lettering based logo. We used a copperplate style with some traits typic of the Amsterdamse krulletter
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Thanks a lot to Jaap Biemans and de Volkskrant’s design team for choosing our font Krul for this beautiful spread in the Volkskrant’s magazine. It looks gorgeous.
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Many thanks to Yves Peters for the thorough review of De Amsterdamse Krulletter published in Fontshop’s weblog.
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The beautiful lettering painted on the windows of Café “Het Molenpad” was one of the first works with “Amsterdamse Krulletters” I could identify and photograph back in 2004. “Het Molenpad” is on the Prinsengracht, separated a few meters from the location of the building were the Public Library used to be located. Two or three years later, I started to be more systematic and take pictures of every window with krulletters, so I came back to this … > Read article

As every year we have made a Flickr’s album with pictures of KAKB’s Type and Media 2014/15 graduation projects: https://www.flickr.com/photos/retype/sets/72157654986009899
Enjoy!
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We have to admit we are terribly flattered by the very positive double page review of De Amsterdamse Krulletter that Bob Witman has published in De Volkskrant.
… > Read article

In the last weeks we have been busy making a number of lettering works in the style of the Amsterdamse Krulletters for some of our clients. Some will be printed and others will be hand painted by colleague sign painters. If you need a similar project, don’t hesitate in contacting us.
You can take a look to the complete set at our Behance account.

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Ramiro has recently given a workshop introducing to copperplate calligraphy to the Amsterdam Sign Painters Guild. It was a great Saturday spent among home made walnut ink, oblique holders and vintage pointed nibs. Thanks to the ASG crew for the hospitality and the great company! (More pictures of the even can be seen at in Flickr’s account.)
… > Read article

Our typeface Laski Slab –designed by Paula Mastrangelo & Ramiro Espinoza – has been awarded with the highest prize of the Hiii Typography contest. Needless to say we feel deeply honored for receiving it. Thanks a lot to the jury and congratulations to the rest of the winers.
… > Read article

What are the origins of the exuberant swash letters that can be found on the windows of many of Amsterdam’s most traditional bars? Who painted them? Was it a collective creation, or the work of a lone gifted sign painter? How old is this style?
For almost a decade Ramiro Espinoza thoroughly researched the refined, swirling lettering style, examining every surviving example in Amsterdam, Maastricht and Ghent in an effort to answer these questions. He compiled his findings in De A … > Read article

Kerning fonts is a tiring activity that can put a big stress on your extremities. Following the advice given at Robothon conference by Andy Clymer, we are experimenting using MetricsMachine and an USB’s game pad with the help of the universal driver USB Overdrive. It works like a charm. We specially like to have a handy way to flip the selected pair when checking kerning symmetry. The next kerning work at Retype is much probably going to be performed with this method.
… > Read article

‘De Amsterdamse Krulletter’ files have been delivered to the publisher and the book will be available approximately in one month. The book will be presented on 8 of April at the Bijzondere Collecties’s building in Amsterdam.

… > Read article

Le Guess Who is a music festival for independent music such as noise rock, indie rock, IDM, held in Utrecht, Netherlands. Some months ago they began using Kurversbrug as its main typeface for posters, website and their Treasure Guide publication. All designs by Loudmouth.

… > Read article

“De Amsterdamse Krulletter“, an exhaustive research about the Amsterdam’s Curly Letter by Ramiro Espinoza and Rob Becker will be published by Lecuris.nl in April/2015. Stay tuned for news about the book presentation.
Click here for more information.
“De Amsterdamse Krulletter” can be purchased following this link
… > Read article

Our friend Donald Beekman from Studio DBXL has designed with our font Krul a beautiful campaign for Mooie Noten, Amsterdam’s singer-songwriter competition. Great job, Donald!
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We have been experimenting with our friends of BunkerType with a wood type version of Kurversbrug, the revival of Amsterdam’s bridge letters. We chose a fragment of a famous poem by Jan Campert (“Een Amsterdamsch lied”) and with it a poster in the spirit of The Amsterdam School avant-garde was designed and printed. Stay tuned, the poster will be made available soon.

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Our typeface Laski Slab has been generously featured in the Japanese magazine Typography #6. It’s a well designed publication with a careful selection of recently published typefaces and related news on typography. Thanks a lot to Yuko Miyago and his team.

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With our colleagues from Bunker Type we are planning a wood type version of Kurversbrug. Soon this new incarnation of the Amsterdam’s bridge letters (brugletter) will be ready and a set of posters dedicated to the city will be printed with them. Stay tuned for more news!

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Few months ago we shared here some outstanding posters Richard Wolfströme designed with our Kade typeface. Now he has employed Laski Slab to design Here and Now, a magazine for The Academy of Urbanism. We think it is a beautiful piece of editorial design and we are glad our type family is playing an important rol in it. As always, thanks Richard for sharing your work with us.

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As every year the Bijzondere Collecties department of the University of Amsterdam is organizing the Type Amsterdam event. In this opportunity, the lectures will delivered by: Nina Stoessinger, Sébastien Morlighem, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès and Ron van Roon.
You can subscribe in this webpage, but don’t wait too much since the venue has a rather limited capacity.
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Thanks a lot to the staff of Slanted Magazine for featuring our Laski Slab family in the “Contemporary Typefaces” section.

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On this Sunday 16 of November there will be a workshop organized by TypeCrit Amsterdam and hosted at the Grafisch Werkplaats Amsterdam oriented toward creating custom 3D printed block letters. It will be a very good opportunity to learn more about letterpress printing and use the equipment kept in the workshop. Don’t miss it!: http://www.meetup.com/TypeCrit-Amsterdam/events/208205692/

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Kurversbrug – our interpretation of the idiosyncratic alphabet found on the bridges in Amsterdam – was the first type family released by Retype back in 2007. From the onset the Kurversbrug typefaces were very well received, and have been applied in countless design projects, websites and advertising campaigns. Even the Amsterdam municipality started using Kurversbrug in a new series of bridge nameplates. This made us realize a revamp of the family was necessary, so we began wo … > Read article

We were very pleased to find that Berry Slok Studio from Amsterdam chose our script font Dulcinea to design the poster, brochures and catalogue of the Hermitage Museum‘s exhibition ‘Dining with the Tsars’. It looks great, we hope to see soon more works from this studio.

… > Read article

Chil3 is an Australian design studio that creates stunning works of identity and editorial design. They have recently designed the identity for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and have chosen David Quay’s Kade as its main typeface. We love how it looks in the context of this solid design work.

… > Read article

We have recently worked with Renee Ramraj creating a font for the G-Star’s campaign ‘Raw for the oceans’. The alphabet plays an important part in this identity where it must reaffirm the messages behind the environmentally-conscious initiative.

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For those who like to check what the students from the Type & Media Master make every year, we’ve uploaded to our Flickr account a set of images of their graduation projects. Alternatively you can also take a look to the pictures we posted in our Instagram account.
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Finnish designer Tom Backström from mustakirahvi.net has designed this stunning book jacket with our typeface Winco. It looks great Tom, thanks a lot for letting us know about it!
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For those type lovers who prefer the smell of printed specimens, we’ve made a Laski Slab booklet displaying every weight and showing their potential with a variety of design examples. It can be ordered here.
… > Read article