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Perfectly merging the colorful Japanese style of public communication into the more austere Latin writing systems dominant in Switzerland, Swiss Type Foundry Grilli Type has released a charming new font family: GT Maru stands for joyful, warm and soft communication.
Inspired by the friendly and playful Japanese construction signage, Thierry Blancpain first had the idea for this typeface on one of his trips to Japan. For him, public communication is a way to grasp the nuances of a new city and culture. The bright colors and soft edges used in Japanese construction warning signs create a welcoming atmosphere in contrast to the hard and edgy warning signs around Swiss construction sites – while still being equally efficient. This is what sparked inspiration for a typeface that combines casual and functional nuances.
The challenge was to keep the balance between a jovial rounded typeface and a more austere sans serif typeface, which is dominant in the Swiss visual culture. Over the course of four years, Blancpain created the GT Maru family, paying homage to the signs he saw back in Japan. It features five weights in both proportional as well as monospaced, and as a whole emoji set, available in black and white and color variants.The typeface is exclusively available at Grilli Type.
To present all the different variations in this font family, Grilli Type has created a Minisite, where the new typeface and its various features can be explored.
Swiss Type Foundry Grilli Type was founded by Noël Leu and Thierry Blancpain in Switzerland in late 2009. The six designers work together from all over the world, from New York City, over Europe all the way to East Asia. They focus not only on technical excellence, but want to create types that convey meaning beyond the words they spell out. Every typeface should tell a story and have a personality.
Apart from creating retail typefaces, they also work on wide-ranging, type-focused projects with numerous clients around the globe.
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