For the second consecutive year Communication Arts held its annual typography and type design competition in search for the best typography of the year. The 2012 Typography Annual showcases the 150 winning projects selected by a distinguished panel of jurors such as Richard Kegler, Erik Spiekermann and Tiffany Wardle de Sousa.
More than 1,700 entries were submitted for this second Typography Annual, reflecting the quantity of work produced in a single year. The organisers were pleased with the international nature of the submissions, especially in the typeface category, and the inclusion of several non-Latin typefaces.

Regal Finesse Pro by Parachute, was selected to be among the winners in the typeface design category. This is not the first time that various families from the Regal series receive awards. Regal was also a winner in last year’s Creative Review Type Competition, as well as a winner in the Granshan Awards 2010. Regal Pro was originally created for the redesign of Grazia magazine and later was revamped and upgraded for commercial use. The original 3 basic families were expanded to include more variations, ligatures, swashes and additional support for Latin and Greek. The final version of Regal includes 5 families. Currently Regal Pro is available offline but will be officially released online shortly.

S Moda is a “newborn” weekly trendsetting fashion magazine which is published alongside the Saturday edition of the Spanish newspaper EL PAÍS. Its emphasis is on women’s fashion, interviews, design, travel, leisure, social trends and the world of beauty. As EL PAÍS points out “S Moda will attempt to go beyond fashion shows, it will treat fashion as an attitude as well as a cultural expression of the first level and finally target people who appreciate aesthetics”.

S Moda is a joint venture between PRISA the publisher of EL PAÍS newspaper and Conde Nast responsible for high quality magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair and Glamour. The magazine is under the leadership of Oscar Becerra, a veteran magazine genius. Oscar is that rare combination of a magazine creator with a tremendous feeling for what the audience wants at any particular time. S Moda’s editor in chief is Empar Prieto and design director is Diego Areso. The cover of the first issue features Sarah Jessica Parker in a bolero jacket, giving an exclusive interview. The photo shoot was done in New York.

S Moda was built around two award winning typefaces by Parachute: PF Encore Sans Pro (European Design Awards 2010, Granshan Awards 2010) and PF Regal Pro (Granshan Awards 2010, Creative Review Type Annual 2011).

Regal Pro is a new upcoming family, absolutely elegant, luxurious, sexy and vibrant, which reflects the female sensitivity taking into consideration a modern woman who is more proud, more connected, more spontaneous, open-minded and eager to try a whole host of new products and services.

Regal Pro not only emphasizes femininity but also reflects both the romantic as well as the dynamic side of the female personality. Targeting this consumption-wise and well educated woman, Regal is not strictly based on classic forms, but incorporates several distinct elements that express a modern woman’s personality and the products she consumes. Regal Pro is currently available offline and will make its debut online very soon inside the newly redesigned Parachute website.

Encore Sans Pro, being simple and stylish, is a perfect alternative to some rather overused classic sans. It is a humanistic sans serif which projects an image of reliability, authority and competence. Its subtle round characteristics such as the slightly curved-in edges, create a distinctly contemporary look, blending effectively traditional with modern details, combining utility with style.

This family is extremely versatile and functional. Extreme weights, such as the elegant hairline, are carefully designed to establish an even color throughout, while ultra black despite its heavy characteristics is quite legible and powerful. Intermediate weights such as light and book are ideal as body text for magazines and catalogs.

S Moda is accompanied by a powerful website which is updated every minute and offers the most current information about style and trends through audiovisual content and exclusive stories. There is also an application for iPad available as a free download. Regal Pro and Encore Sans Pro have been implemented as webfonts in the website and are also used in the iPad application.
The magazine’s second issue features a stunning Mila Jovovich on the cover, photographed by Eric Guillemain.

S Moda website
S Moda iPad application
TVC video

As more and more traditional practices turn digital, we were excited to receive information about a brand new application for the iPad. LetterMpress™ is a virtual letterpress environment which allows anyone to create authentic-looking letterpress designs and prints. The design process is the same as the letterpress process; you place and arrange wood type and cuts on a press bed, lock the type, ink the type and print. You are able to create unlimited designs, with multiple colors, using authentic vintage wood type and art cuts. You can print your design directly from LetterMpress or save it as an image and import it into other applications.

Letterpress has experienced recently a growing interest amongst designers, artists, and printmakers. A reaction to the “perfect” look of modern printing? Whatever it is, letterpress evokes a handcrafted appearance unparalleled by other printmaking methods.

Watch the video

The last issue of Creative Review showcases the winners of the first Type Annual for Excellence in International Typeface Design over the past year. A large number of entries were judged by Coralie Bickford-Smith who is senior cover designer at Penguin Books, John Bateson a fellow of ISTD and founder of Bateson Studio and Fiona Ross, lecturer, author and typographic designer. In addition several experts were consulted such as Maxim Zhukov, Miguel Sousa, Dr Mamoun Sakkal and Adi Stern. There were 4 main categories: display faces, bespoke faces, non-latin faces and text faces.
Parachute’s Regal Pro was selected to be among the winners in the text faces category. Back in October of last year it won again first place in the display category at the Granshan Awards. Regal Pro was originally created for the redesign of Grazia magazine and later was revamped and upgraded for commercial use. The original 3 basic families were expanded to include more variations, ligatures, swashes and additional support for Latin and Greek. The final version of Regal includes 6 families. Currently Regal Pro is available locally but will be officially released online shortly.

.net is the world’s bestselling magazine for web designers and developers. In a recent article on the top 20 fonts for web design, Centro Sans Pro was selected to be on the list based on its impressive legibility and great looks. According to the article “Many superfamilies or type systems enable designers to mix serifs and sans serifs to achieve simultaneous consistency and contrast, and Centro is one such superfamily. It has been described as an ‘invisible’ typeface, where its single greatest attribute is its impressive legibility. The sans is strong and sturdy, with a large x-height and, quite simply, it looks absolutely great in use on screen”. Centro Pro is a complete type system which consists of sans, serif and slab superfamilies. In 2008 it received a Gold Award from the European Design Awards and another award in 2009 from the International Type Design Competition - Modern Cyrillic. The top 20 list includes other fonts such as Avenir, Helvetica, Bree, Proxima Nova, Meta, Clarendon, Georgia.