Welcome to the latest issue of our newsletter, where I’ll continue to share the latest ongoings at the studio. Take a look at our our archive.

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New Typeface Release

Ginto Rounded is a geometric-humanist font of soft edges and playful forms. Like its non-rounded older cousins Ginto, Ginto Nord, and Ginto Nord Condensed, the Ginto Rounded subfamilies explore the tension between circular shapes and moments of sharpness.

Think of them like field recordings that capture baroque, animated styles from the ’60s and ’70s as they exchange whispers with stricter, “modern” proportion models (like that of Futura).

Today’s release marks the completion of the Ginto project. All rounded and non-rounded Ginto subfamilies create a full package of fonts, which can be combined to support or create visual tension with one another (I’d even say that an entire branding project could be completed with this toolbox alone).

Short story

The Complete Range

What’s the difference between Ginto Rounded and Ginto Nord Rounded, you ask?

Both families cover the same weight range, from Thin to Ultra with corresponding Italics. As often is the case with subfamilies, the difference between them comes down to their underlying skeleton and proportions. Standard Ginto Rounded comes with a regular x-height and compact lowercase characters, making it good for smaller text sizes. Ginto Nord Rounded has a higher x-height and wider characters – making it a good fit for chunky display contexts.

The new Ginto Rounded spin-off also includes Ginto Rounded Nord Condensed. There’s a Variable Font that bridges both Nords, allowing you to fine-tune width and find solutions for a variety of spatial contexts. NB: The non-rounded subfamilies are divided in exactly the same way. Let’s take one last look at the full Ginto family tree:

The Team

Seb McLauchlan began collaborating with us and designing ABC Ginto in 2016. Originally from New Zealand, he moved to the UK in 2015 and has been working in between type and graphic design ever since.

Seb started developing Ginto while researching sans-serif typefaces from the twentieth century, focusing on the shift from Modernist “purity” to the more dynamic styles of the post-phototypesetting period. He’s also the designer behind our ABC Marist and ABC ROM.

Alongside Seb, Luke Charsley worked on all the Ginto Rounded subfamilies, taking Seb’s initial sketches over the finish line. And Kasper Pyndt Rasmussen created the Nord Condensed family, with Addison Copas — a former student of Seb’s from Kingston School of Art in London — collaborating with our own Hugo Jourdan to update and produce the complete avalanche of fresh Ginto font files.

New in Hardware: ABCap (Green)

New year, new cap: This week we released a moss green edition of our Apple Big Cap. Comes complete with an off-white and ice gray embroidered logo at face plus metal buckle clasp and healthy label.

Walter Caption Contest: Round #11

In (most) issues of The Dinamo Update, we provide a new Walter cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, can submit your caption by responding to this email or by commenting on our caption contest IG post. The best three responses win the complete Walter Alte.

Scroll on for the last round’s winners — as well as the new contest. Or take a take a look at our Walter Caption Contest Hall of Fame for all our past winning submissions.

This Month’s Contest

Round 10 Finalists

🏆🏆🏆

Congratulations to our winners! You should all have your font files of ABC Alte Walter :)

Studio Updates

PS

Spells is a new compendium featuring images generated using thoughtfully crafted AI image prompts. Our team members have differing feelings on the challenges and possibilities that AI represents — but this book is an interesting example of what creative collaboration with AI can look. We contributed a few prompts ourselves — plus ABC Diatype ☝️

• ICYMI: From now on, all cultural or non-profit projects receive a 25% price reduction on all our fonts. Read more about that here.
• Also here’s a tool that helps you create type specimens by finding words of the same width.
• If you’re in Berlin, check out The Stand-in School for Graphic Design, a six-week open educational program of 60 workshops taking place at Hopscotch Reading Room’s space at Gerichtstraße 45. It’s organized by first year MA graphic design students at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
• Notice how people don’t really talk about selling out anymore? I enjoyed this deep dive on the changing meaning of authenticity.
• DIY web customization à la MySpace could have a radical come back, according to The Digital Fairy.
• Kyle Chayka’s new book looks at how homogenizing algorithms have changed culture and personal taste. He asks, what can we do to reclaim free will?
• I’m enjoying scrolling through the resources listed in the Loading Culture, a new digital space for “promoting transparency within the creative industry, particularly in Switzerland.”
• Is slowing down the answer to our problems, or just the latest trend we’re being sold? The New Yorker critics discuss.

That’s it for today! See you next time.

Love,
Dinamo x