This is something of an ongoing project. Art Director Neil Jamieson really liked Jubilat, but wanted a slab with square terminals. Dropping the contrasts required by ball terminals required that we take down the contrast generally, which is especially nice at small sizes, and makes for a much stronger match for the content. Only a handful of characters changed here, but the details make all the difference.

For nearly a century the design of this Meredith publication has been of the “show me, don’t tell me” variety, and in this incarnation, crafted by Maryjane Fahey, nothing has changed. Everything from seed germination to color theory can be found in its pages, with informational typography aided by several families in the Freight series. On a personal note, it was wonderful to hear about this redesign, as about half of the meals I ate as a child were from my mother’s trusty BH&G cookbook.

Nearly everyone has seen Reader’s Digest, but I was surprised to learn that there are more than 50 editions throughout the world. On the technical side of typography, this fact highlighted for us the vital need for backward compatibility: we were able to supply Freight with a variety of 8-bit encodings for reliable localized typesetting. The new look extends to the Large Print versions.

Lead82 sent us a couple of issues of this publication of the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, which uses Freight Micro and Freight Sans alongside Jean-Francois Porchez’s Ambroise in rich colors, well-suited to the photography.

Esterson Associates contacted us to refine the Harpers Wine & Spirit mark, based on Freight Big Black. This project was straightforward enough that we were able to complete it well under the usual budget, with special versions for web and interior applications. This redesign benefited from a continuous typographic texture from cover to cover, fostered by using Freight Big, Display, and Sans together throughout.

Cookie was among our first magazine projects, in late 2005. In addition to an invisible redesign of a nameplate which had tested well in focus groups, we contributed a proprietary system of display numerals for folios, supplemented by Freight Text and Freight Sans, providing a crisp counterpoint to the vivid photos toward the front of the book, and a quiet imperative to info-heavy listings and service pages.

Kirby Rodriguez & Alex Grossman pushed Freight Sans to its limits; a few months after the launch, they commissioned the Semibold and Hairline weights for four-color knockouts and fine display, respectively.