Custom typography deepens brand experience.
Companies understand that a logo should be one of a kind, created specifically for their brand. Some also understand that the use of type, letterforms, and fonts greatly deepens brand experience.
Every typeface has a history and sends subtle signals to your audience. Picking a pre-existing font for something as critical as your brand name immediately decreases uniqueness.
Our typographic experiments began in 1993, in the pages of Plazm magazine. Back then we sold fonts for sixty bucks on a floppy disk. Pictured above is a page from Plazm, designed by Marcus Burlile in ’94. Although we no longer retail fonts (or know where to find floppy disks), we do customize letterforms regularly.
Our branding projects regularly involve custom typography, whether in service of a logo or developing type for other uses.
The Parker
This custom door pull for The Parker was part of the brand identity for a Pearl District real estate project inspired by Art Deco era design. Adapting vintage letterforms and customizing for contemporary use, Plazm provided branding, all building wayfinding, and architectural signage.
NDX & SFT
When Nike Golf prepared to launch two custom brands, the company sought Plazm two create two brand identities with custom type.
The Cooley Gallery, Reed College
Rebranding, marketing & publication design
The Douglas F. Cooley Gallery at Reed College was an important local institution in need of a rebrand. We started with a new naming convention and a powerful new identity that suggests both historical heft and contemporary engagement, customizing typography to suit the project.
Newsweek
Rebranding, editorial design
Plazm was invited to reimagine the Newsweek brand and the editorial design of the historically important print publication. A custom semi-slab typeface was used for the brand name and headlines, modernizing the publication while evoking heritage. Eventually the magazine migrated to an entirely digital format, with clarified typography.
Vara
We used custom typography to boost Vara’s boutique design build shop. These single lines with no counters are perfect for die-cutting, which is what we did with the substantial, unique Vara business cards.
Conduit
An energy efficiency workspace for industry professionals needed a brand that reflected its purpose. We created their naming, brand identity with custom typography, and a website.
Nike Victory
Brand typeface
Plazm developed a complete corporate typeface for Nike. Prior to this project Nike utilized two common fonts as their primary typographic identifiers. Victory takes inspiration from both faces but uniquely embodies characteristics of both. The type family contains 18 variants ranging from condensed to extended and led to the development of Victory Neue, a stylized evolution of the font.
