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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The Arizona Type Specimen 2

Thank you to everyone who bought the first one — and to all of our independent stockists around the world. Hopefully this updated run will win itself a space on your bookshelves, too; it comes complete with a new Pantone color palette, a troupe of animals illustrated by Célestin Krier, and caterpillar green spiral binding.

This five color, split-page specimen showcases ABC Arizona, the first ever sans-to-serif Variable Font that packages its five looks — Serif, Text, Mix, Flare, and Sans — into one single file.

Designed by Studio HanLi, the book mirrors Arizona’s countless combinations through its split structure. You can mix and match the half pages to discover the typeface’s vast system, just like monster picture books for kids.

An essay by type historian Ferdinand Ulrich places ABC Arizona in conversation with other sans to serif experiments from the past, including Otl Aicher’s Rotis. And Célestin’s new illustrations let you create your own Frankenstein creations with mismatch animal bodies and legs.

Reminder: Educators can reply directly to this email for free library copies of all our Dinamo Editions titles (while stocks last). And you can reply directly to this email if you’d like to stock The Arizona Type Specimen in your shop.

New Client Work

Norwegian transdisciplinary architectural practice Snøhetta reached out to us to create a font customization and bespoke wordmark for its recent identity overhaul.

We ended up rounding and tweaking core characters of our ABC Social, and also adding a new set of glyphs, creating a bespoke cut named Dovre Social. Discretionary ligatures including logomark are embedded straight into the font files.

Walter Caption Contest

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 11 Finalists

🏆🏆🏆

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

Studio Updates

PS

Our ’lil digital room for SuperInternet recently went live as part of the Wrong Biennale in Marsèll Paradise Milano. The team behind the project are trying to build a bottom up anti-metaverse where “users can be not-sad, or at least not exploited by design.” Our graphic designer Tina Lehmkuhl meticulously drew objects beginning with each letter of our name on every wall of our contribution. “The nose took longest to draw, I had to get the HEX codes on photoshop and then draw pixel by pixel,” she told me (the nose is 3 meters tall in VR). I highly recommend you take a stroll through the entirety of this new universe. Thanks to Gabriele & co. for the invite.

• Our friends at ReadyMag have launched a new graphic design grant of $2000 plus mentorship as part of their Designing Women project, open to all female-identifying and non-binary people.
• Boom, Promphan Suksumek, who just completed ABC Diatype Thai for us, is giving an online workshop on Thai type design this month. More info here.
• Enjoyed this from NYT: Microsoft Word’s subtle typeface change affected millions. Did you notice?
• Hilton Als on Kim Gordon for AnOther.
• Olga released a new pixel font via Future Fonts.
• Reddit’s long, rocky road to IPO.

That’s everything for today. See you next time.

Love,
Dinamo x