Lunch & Learn | Dalton Maag: Lessons on Type Design
Lunch & Learn is an informal monthly get together where somebody from the team – or a friend of the studio – shares their insight on a particular topic. These sessions can cover a whole range of subjects; everything from a workshop on how to give and receive feedback, to advice on dealing with mental health, and learning about the creative process from lettering artist Alec Tear.
Lunch & Learns typically last up to 45 mins and take place either virtually or IRL. A chance to explore something different to the day-to-day, the whole Fiasco team is encouraged to join. This month, we had the pleasure of being joined in the studio by Zeynep from Dalton Maag.
What is Dalton Maag?
Dalton Maag is an independent type design studio. Founded in 1991, they work with designers and branding specialists worldwide to help clients find their best typographic expression; from logotype refinement and font licensing, to the creation of custom font suites.
Made up of an international team of 50+, they span over 20 nationalities and speak over 12 languages between them. With many awards and accolades under their belt, you may have come across their work for Rio 2016, Google, Amazon, Intel, and Nokia, to name a few.
Dalton Maag >< Fiasco
We invited Creative Director, Zeynep, into the Fiasco studio for a whistle-stop tour of the type design process.
Zeynep Akay is a type designer and creative director with over 10 years in the field. Her focus and experience ranges from dynamic brand typographies, to font technologies, and multilingual / multi-script typefaces. She has led in Dalton Maag’s collaborations with Meta, Airbnb, among others. As a Creative Director she also connects with fellow creatives, like ourselves, to discuss the various aspects and future potential of type.
Lessons on Type
Using examples from previous Dalton Maag clients, Zeynep walked us through the process of working with big name clients including the likes of Wiggins, Makers Mark and LUSH.
Zeynep unpacked the different typographic services they offer. Ranging from logo refinement to custom typefaces, depending on the needs of the client. Using real-world examples, she talked us through some of the difficulties clients often face with type. These include things like going global and having issues with multi-script, as well as rolling out handwritten fonts on digital platforms.
At the heart of Dalton Maag’s ethos is the belief that type has the ability to communicate expression, make brands more accessible, and unite communications worldwide for global brands.
Sustainable Type
Zeynep also explained the environmental impact of type. Of course, fonts are essentially data. And huge amounts of data = not great for the planet. So they are constantly looking for new technologies to help mitigate their environmental impact.
One of the latest advances is colour fonts. This relatively new tech allows designers to set the colour palette within the font itself, in a way that would previously not be possible without quite advanced graphics applications. These kind of technological advances are of particular interest to us at the moment, as we explore ways that we can be more mindful of our digital footprint as part of our B Corp process.
Huge thanks to Zeynep for taking the time to come round and share her words of wisdom. Her enthusiasm and expertise were infectious. You can see more of Dalton Maag’s great work on their site.
Interested in running your own Lunch & Learn with the Fiasco team? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch via hello@fiasco.design.
Words By Nathalie Crease
You might also like...
Do you have a project in mind?
Let us know more. We’d love to have a chat to see how we could help.