This post was originally published on the Maido blog.

这篇文章最初发表在 Maido博客上 。

You might notice that we’ve had a little facelift at Maido. Or you might not — and that’s totally fine. What we launched at the end of last year was not really a redesign, but more of a re-align. An evolution rather than a revolution.

您可能会注意到，我们在Maido进行了一些改头换面。 或者，您可能不这样做-那就很好。 我们在去年年底推出的并不是真正的重新设计，而是更多的重新调整。 进化而不是革命。

Why the change? Maido has evolved over the last few years from working in the purely commercial world to partnering with commercial, NGO, and government organisations who are striving to positively change the world through design and technology. And it’s not only that we’re bringing our experience from both sides of the coin to our clients; we’ve also made some fundamental changes internally about how we evaluate which projects we take on, and how we feel driven by what we do as a team. And to reflect this revised approach to our work, we knew we had to update the way we talk about ourselves on our website, and choose two new typefaces and an accompanying logotype to solidify our redefined brand.

为什么要改变？ 在过去的几年中，Maido已从在纯粹的商业世界中发展到与商业，非政府组织和政府组织建立合作伙伴关系，后者正努力通过设计和技术积极地改变世界。 不仅是我们将硬币两面的经验带给了客户； 我们还在内部进行了一些根本性的更改，例如我们如何评估所开展的项目以及我们如何以团队合作为动力。 为了反映这种修改后的工作方式，我们知道我们必须更新在网站上谈论自己的方式，并选择两种新的字体和相应的徽标来巩固我们重新定义的品牌。

Our typographic updates were meant to be a relatively gentle next step, and the decision to root our brand’s new typography in the same world as our former one wasn’t just us not wanting to upset the apple cart; it was something that came out of the internal workshop we ran to determine the kind of message we wanted to convey. In short, we realised that we were actually already doing a lot of things right: Playfair Display, used for headings on our website and slide decks, did a good job of communicating the authority we have on the subjects we care about, and Circular did a good job of alluding to our young culture and start-up-y-ness (that’s a technical term for you there, by the way). And the unique pairing of the formal and informal type also spoke to the two worlds we operate within.

我们的版式更新本来是一个相对温和的下一步，而决定将我们品牌的新版式植根于与以前的版本相同的世界，不仅意味着我们不想让苹果购物车不高兴； 这是我们为确定要传达的信息而举办的内部研讨会的结果。 简而言之，我们意识到我们实际上已经在做很多事情：Playfair Display，用于我们网站和幻灯片平台的标题，在传达我们对所关注主题的权威方面做得很好，而Circular做暗喻我们年轻的文化和刚起步的企业(这对您来说是一个技术术语)是一件好事。 正式和非正式类型的独特搭配也谈到了我们经营的两个世界。

But those two particular typefaces are in use by a lot of brands and we wanted something more personal. So the hunt was on for two slightly less well-known faces that could continue doing the good work started by Playfair and Circular. Plus, we really had to do something about the Maido logotype being set in Nouvelle Vague — a DaFont hangover from the company’s very early days.

但是很多品牌都在使用这两种特殊的字体，我们想要更个性化的东西。 因此，我们一直在寻找不那么知名的两张面Kong，这些面Kong可以继续完成Playfair和Circular的出色工作。 另外，我们真的必须对在Nouvelle Vague中设置的Maido徽标进行某些处理，这是公司成立初期的DaFont遗留物。

In a world that not only has thousands (millions?) of typefaces to choose from, but also has the vast majority available for free, how do you go about standing out from the crowd? One tactic I’ve employed a few times now is to limit my font searching to one platform or service, which helps frame the search within a manageable set of parameters, and — if the platform or service you’ve chosen isn’t not one of the ‘major’ font vendors — has the added bonus of surfacing typefaces that not every single other designer on the planet is using. For this reason, I decided to limit the search exclusively to Fontstand.

在一个不仅可以选择数千种字体的世界中，还可以免费使用绝大多数字体的世界中，您如何脱颖而出？ 我现在采用的一种策略是将字体搜索限制在一个平台或服务上，这有助于在一组可管理的参数范围内进行搜索，并且-如果您选择的平台或服务不是一个“主要”字体供应商中的一员–拥有表面字体的额外好处，这种字体并非地球上每个其他设计师都在使用。 因此，我决定仅将搜索限制为Fontstand 。

With a pretty clear direction informed by the conclusions from our internal workshop, there were already a few restrictions in place, but at the same time I didn’t want to delve too deep into one particular direction from the get-go, and the first ‘typographic explorations’ workshop was presented to the entire Maido team with a few contrasting directions, intended to serve as both a sanity check and a test to ensure that we hadn’t accidentally ruled out wider options too soon. So what I showed in that session ranged from families such as Utile to wildcard choices such as Daisy.

内部研讨会的结论为我们提供了一个非常明确的方向，已经有了一些限制，但是与此同时，我不想从一开始就深入研究一个特定的方向，而第一个“笔迹探索”研讨会以一些相反的方向介绍给了整个Maido团队，旨在同时进行健全性检查和测试，以确保我们不会意外地排除更广泛的选择。 因此，我在那次会议中展示的内容从Utile之类的家庭到Daisy之类的通配符选择。

You’ll notice from the specimens that many of the pairings are from the same type designer, or at least the same type foundry. This is another very deliberate ‘hack’ I often use when choosing and pairing typefaces; you’re simply more likely to find that there are natural characteristics that appear in typefaces from the same source, and hence a lot of that will-this-one-compliment-the-other-one hand-wringing is already done for you. It’s not always true, but in general it helps add a few more useful parameters when faced with the daunting search of finding not one but two typefaces.

您会从样本中注意到，许多配对来自同一类型设计师，或者至少是同一类型铸造厂。 这是我在选择和配对字体时经常使用的另一个非常刻意的“ hack”。 您很可能会发现在同一来源的字体中出现了自然特征，因此，很多这一切-一件又一件，另一只手-已经为您完成。 并非总是如此，但是总的来说，当遇到寻找一个而不是两个字体的艰巨搜索时，它有助于添加更多有用的参数。

The feedback from the team after that presentation was that although more exploration was needed, everyone tended to lean towards the combination of Grifo and Sul Sans, both designed by Rui Abreu for R-Typography. (I was a little sad to not use DSType’s Breve superfamily, which I’ve been saving in my typographic back pocket for a few years now, but I agreed with the team that it leaned too heavily towards formality, and using the face for both serif headline and sans-serif body wouldn’t work.)

演讲后，团队的反馈是，尽管需要更多的探索，但每个人都倾向于使用Rui Abreu为R-Typography设计的Grifo和Sul Sans的组合。 (我有点难过，不使用DSType的短音家族，我已经在我的排版后面的口袋已储蓄了好几年，但我的团队一致认为，俯下身过于朝手续，并使用在脸上都衬线标题和sans-serif正文无效。)

With a few of these choices, I did some quick-and-dirty experiments, manipulating the ‘M’ to introduce a curve that directly referenced the ‘M’ of Nouvelle Vague and therefore paid homage to Maido’s history — a way of not deviating too wildly from our established brand. Regardless of our eventual choices, everyone agreed that this would be a nice touch for the final logotype.

通过这些选择中的一些，我进行了一些简单的实验，操纵“ M”以引入一条曲线，该曲线直接引用了Nouvelle Vague的“ M”，因此向Maido的历史致敬-一种不偏离的方式从我们的既有品牌疯狂地发展。 不管我们最终选择什么，每个人都同意这将是最终标识的不错选择。

After that initial presentation, I went away and researched more typefaces — again, sticking exclusively within the confines of Fontstand’s offerings — and specifically did a bit more experimenting with the ‘sister’ families of Grifo — Grifino and Grifilito — throwing options back and forth via our Slack channel. They’re essentially the same typeface, but condensed and compressed versions (or extra-condensed if that’s your naming bag). Personally, I love it when a typeface comes in a variety of widths as well as weights (or exists as a variable font — but that’s for another day). Yes, it adds way more parameters to the mix, but once you’ve pretty much settled on a face, it’s useful to have some minutiae to debate, especially when considering exactly which variation you’re going to use for a logo.

在最初的演示之后，我离开了，研究了更多的字体-再次，完全局限于Fontstand产品的范围内-特别是对Grifo的“姐妹”家族Grifino和Grifilito进行了更多的试验-通过我们的Slack频道。 它们本质上是相同的字体，但是是压缩和压缩的版本(或者如果是您的命名包，则是压缩的)。 就个人而言，当字体具有各种宽度和权重(或作为可变字体存在-但这又是一天)时，我会喜欢它。 是的，它为混合添加了更多的参数，但是一旦您将表情固定好了，就可以进行一些细微的讨论，特别是在考虑要用于徽标的变体时，这很有用。

But then Cambon happened.

但是后来康邦发生了。

Harry (one of our designers) pointed the team towards a Dribbble shot that used a typeface called Cambon by a new and little-known foundry called General Type Studio, run by designer Stéphane Elbaz (who’s also Design Director of the rather excellent website The Outline). It piqued my interest — and changed everything.

哈里(我们的设计师之一)向团队提出了Dribbble镜头，该镜头使用了由名不见经传的新兴铸造厂General Type Studio所使用的Cambon字样，该铸造厂由设计师StéphaneElbaz (他还是相当出色的网站The Outline的设计总监)经营。 )。 它激起了我的兴趣，并改变了一切。

Here was a face quite dramatically different from the ones we’d been experimenting with, and yet still ticked the boxes: authoritative, but a little quirky; steeped in history, but modern. I threw around a few specimens, and although the team were a little reticent at first, over time everyone came to love Cambon, especially when they saw it in action on our website.

这是一张与我们正在尝试的面Kong截然不同的面Kong，但仍然打勾了：权威，但有点古怪； 历史悠久，但现代。 我扔了一些标本，尽管团队最初一度有些沉默寡言，但随着时间的流逝，每个人都开始喜欢Cambon，尤其是当他们在我们的网站上看到它时。

At the time of writing, General Type Studio has released just four typefaces, but another of those — a sans called Mier — just so happened to fit the bill for our body text: contemporary, friendly, kind of cool, not too serious. Plus, I’d been agonising about whether we should use Sul Sans for our body type given its uncanny similarity to Circular — would people even notice we’d made a change at all?

在撰写本文时，General Type Studio仅发布了四种字体，但其中的另一种字体(称为Mier的Sans)恰好适合我们的正文文本：现代，友好，有点酷，不太认真。 另外，我一直在为是否应该将Sul Sans用作我们的体型而感到烦恼，因为它与通告非常相似-人们甚至会注意到我们已经做出了改变吗？

So I presented the final options to the team, with a recommendation for the pairing of Cambon and Mier. Everyone agreed, and after some further debate on which weights to use, we settled on Mier B Book for our body typeface (the ‘B’ version most notably has a double-storey ‘a’, and curved tails on the ‘j’ and ‘t’), with the ExtraBold weight for emphasis. It’s a personal preference, but I tend to favour greater contrast between normal and emboldened text, and the weight difference between the Book and ExtraBold provides just that.

因此，我向团队介绍了最终选择，并提出了将Cambon和Mier搭配使用的建议。 每个人都同意，并且在进一步讨论使用哪种砝码后，我们选择了Mier B Book作为我们的身体字体(“ B”版本最明显的是双层“ a”，并且在“ j”和't')，并以ExtraBold权重进行强调。 这是个人喜好，但我倾向于支持普通文本和加粗文本之间更大的对比度，而Book和ExtraBold之间的粗细差别正是这一点。

For our headline type, we chose Cambon Black, but, in a perfect demonstration that branding is a moving piece of work even after all the decisions have seemingly been made and the recommendations documented, we got the website ready for relaunch and realised that the Black weight of Cambon was just too heavy for some of our smaller headings. True, we could’ve changed the size, maybe switched out to Mier B, or even just given them a different treatment, but we decided that needed another weight to offer us a little more flexibility. After a fair bit of internal debate largely centered around deciding whether we should opt for the next weight down from Black to optically suggest the same weight when used at smaller sizes, or intentionally pick a lighter weight for a more conscious contrast, we opted for the latter and chose Cambon Book.

对于我们的标题类型，我们选择了Cambon Black，但是在一个完美的例子中，即使在看似已做出所有决定并记录了建议的情况下，品牌塑造也是一件令人感动的工作，我们已经准备好重新启动该网站，并意识到，Black对于某些较小的标题，Cambon的重量实在太重了。 没错，我们可以更改大小，也许改用Mier B，甚至只是给他们不同的处理方式，但是我们决定需要另外的重量来为我们提供更多的灵活性。 在进行了一系列内部辩论之后，主要是决定是否应该选择较小的重量来代替Black来减轻重量，还是故意选择较轻的重量以进行更清晰的对比，我们选择了后者并选择了Cambon Book。

(Sidenote: font weight names are arbitrary, and in my experience the ‘Book’ weight of a typeface usually sits below the Regular as a lighter version; in Cambon and Mier, it’s actually heavier. It’s not right or wrong either way, but it’s worth remembering these naming quirks when substituting typographic candidates.)

(旁注：字体粗细名称是任意的，根据我的经验，字体的“书本”粗细通常比常规字体轻一些；在Cambon和Mier中，它实际上更重。无论哪种方式，对错都不对，但实际上值得在替换印刷候选时记住这些命名怪癖。)

With our new typefaces chosen, and all arguments around the specifics of weights and styles settled, our branding work was done. Or was it? There was still the question of the logo, and actually it presented us with a problem: typing ‘Maido’ in Cambon Black somehow just didn’t have the same impact as it did when we were experimenting with some of the other contenders, largely because it’s not a particularly high-contrast face; i.e. the difference between the thin strokes and thick strokes is not that intense, or at least not nearly as much as a typeface such as Grifo, or our original typefaces Playfair Display and Nouvelle Vague.

选择新字体后，围绕权重和样式细节的所有争论都得到解决，我们的品牌工作就完成了。 还是吗？ 徽标仍然存在问题，实际上它给我们带来了一个问题：在Cambon Black中键入“ Maido”与在尝试其他竞争者时所产生的影响不一样。它不是特别高对比度的脸； 也就是说，细笔和粗笔之间的差异不是那么强烈，或者至少不比Grifo等字体或我们最初的Playfair Display和Nouvelle Vague字体大。

To tackle this, I decided to manipulate the outlines of the type to create a greater stroke contrast. Although a little fiddly, I was already editing the paths for our own unique touches for the logo. I’ve mentioned the swash-y ‘M’ to hint at maido’s past; along with that, I added a ball terminal to the ‘a’, which was derived from the dot of the ‘i’. For both the ball terminal and that dot, I adjusted the angle of the ovals slightly to match the slant of the ‘o’. The ascender of the ‘d’ and dot of the ‘i’ were extended a touch, and all glyphs were negatively tracked a little (with custom kerning between the ‘M’ and ‘a’, and ‘d’ and ‘o’), resulting in a tighter feel all round.

为了解决这个问题，我决定操纵字体的轮廓以创建更大的笔触对比度。 尽管有点儿怪异，但我已经在编辑我们自己独特的徽标路径。 我已经提到了带斜线的“ M”来暗示舞妓的过去。 随之，我在'a'上添加了一个球形端子，该球形端子源自'i'的点。 对于球形端子和该点，我将椭圆的角度略微调整为与“ o”的倾斜度匹配。 'd'的上升点和'i'的点被扩展了一点，所有字形都被负向跟踪(在'M'和'a'以及'd'和'o'之间的自定义字距调整) ，导致全方位的收紧感。

However, another long-standing gripe with Maido’s original logo was how the thinner stems of the characters disappeared when the logo was used in decks or as an avatar, so one final bit of work that needed to be done to finalise our new logotype was to create a version suitable for use at small sizes — a ‘body’ optical style, essentially. Ironically, this involved adding some of that stroke contrast back in, as well as loosening up again some of that spacing that had been tightened. As with different optical sizes with type, the aim was to create two versions of the logo that felt the same when used at their intended sizes, but would have some noticeable differences if you compared them at a big scale, like-for-like. Like most things in typesetting, it’s really all about bending the rules a little for some reader-friendly optical illusions.

但是，Maido原始徽标的另一个长期困扰就是当徽标在甲板上或化身中使用时，人物的细茎如何消失，因此，完成最终的工作是确定我们的新徽标是创建适合于小尺寸使用的版本-本质上是“主体”光学样式。 具有讽刺意味的是，这涉及到重新添加一些笔触对比度，以及再次放松一些已经收紧的间距。 与使用不同的光学尺寸的字体一样，目标是创建两个版本的徽标，这些徽标在按其预期的尺寸使用时感觉相同，但是如果按比例进行较大的比较，它们会有一些明显的差异。 像排版中的大多数事情一样， 对于某些读者友好的光学错觉来说 ，实际上是稍微弯曲规则 。

Typography aside, this was a good opportunity to give our website a fresh coat of paint, too. Some new content and imagery, some tidying-up (hello, new footer), and the integration of the blog into the website itself — but all with a focus on redefining who we are, with a renewed focus on our work in the social impact space. Again: evolution, not revolution.

除了排版，这也是向我们的网站提供新的涂层的好机会。 一些新的内容和图像，一些整理的内容(您好，新的页脚)，以及将博客集成到网站本身中的内容-但所有这些都专注于重新定义我们的身份，并重新关注了我们在社会影响力方面的工作空间。 再说一次：进化，而不是革命。

So, the new Maido brand (hopefully) feels refreshed, somewhat more usable, and more accurate for who we are today. We hope you like it. And it’s also the first step in a much deeper rebranding process: a soft relaunch to close out 2019 before we go all in with our, er, hard relaunch in 2020. Watch this space.

因此，新的Maido品牌(希望如此)对我们今天的人来说是焕然一新，更实用，更准确的。 我们希望您能喜欢。 而且，这也是更深层次的品牌重塑过程的第一步：在2019年进行软重启，然后在2020年进行艰难的重新启动。

Since this post was first published, I’ve left Maido and am now looking for new work. Please feel free to get in touch if you’re interested in me doing something like this for your brand!

自从这篇文章首次发表以来，我已经离开了Maido，现在正在寻找新作品。 如果您对我有兴趣为您的品牌做这样的事情， 请随时与我们 联系 ！