Armin and Bryony have posted a fantastic look at what is my current favorite redesign of the year, at Brand New. They’re looking at the Chester Zoo, which Music just redid, showing off some genius, genius typography. What’s not so evident without using the typography first-hand is the bananas amount of OpenType scripting being built into the these typefaces, in the forms of alternates and illustrated characters.
My other favorite aspect of the work is that it doesn’t look digital at all which I think is a huge aesthetic leap for identity design. For quite some time now, this idea that an identity doesn’t need to look so suit-and-tie has been sneaking into the vernacular of business graphics, and it’s interesting to me. I never actually thought I’d see a day where the things being put out as bona fide public institution signage would be the same sorts of handmade ideas being tossed around, most visibly by Ed Fella, only about fifteen years ago.