Snøhetta
Customized Typeface & Logo
The Norwegian transdisciplinary architectural practice Snøhetta reached out to us to create a font customization and bespoke wordmark for its recent identity overhaul.
Alongside new character design and special glyphs, we embedded custom ligatures into the font, so that in-house designers can seamlessly integrate both wordmark and logomark into text.
For the collaboration, we made core characters of our typeface ABC Social more geometric and fluid, creating a bespoke cut called Dovre Social. It’s named after the municipality where the Snøhetta mountain is located — and where the Snøhetta team often travel together for company retreats.
Font Customization
Social is a friendly grotesque of freely designed forms and rounded shapes. For Dovre Social, we gave rounded characters even more generous space to create an airy and constructed feel. We also sloped tails and accentuated curves, to make the character set feel even warmer and architechtural. We think this new face is well-suited to the geometric, yet welcoming and organic, vibe of Snøhetta’s own designs.
Created in Light, Medium, and corresponding Italics
Take a look at the changes we made in some of the core characters that we identified:
Wider S that takes its time
Curvy R stem that slides
Curious tail and rounded Q
Special Glyphs
We created custom glyphs for the global brand, which has offices in nine locations spread out across four different continents. Our custom arrowheads are a key UX element across the company’s website and digital identity.
Ligatures
To help Snøhetta designers integrate the brand’s logo and wordmark into text seamlessly across a range of applications, our discretionary ligatures embed the logotype designs into the typefaces files themselves. The quick shortcuts allow for fast implementation.
BTS
Visiting our clients personally and seeing their work space and archives always helps us get to know a brand more intimately. Getting to know a team and their way of collaborating lets us tailor our solutions more precisely, and we often draw inspiration from the world where the font will find its home!
On a visit to the Snøhetta Oslo offices, our team recently documented the early life of Social Dovre:
Credits
Dinamo: Johannes Breyer, Ethan Cohen
Snøhetta Creative Direction: Henrik Eriksen
Snøhetta Design TeaM: Andrea Novali, Eirunn Kvalnes, Gaute Tenold Aase, Hedda Lilleng, Henrik Haugan, Janicke Sæther, Linn Wie, Nicolay Wesseltoft, Petter Torgersen Myhr, Pia Falk Lind
