Leipzigzwo is a corporate typeface for ’Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO)‘ in four styles, combining a modern, geometric stroke with historical letter forms, including a detailed western language support and Cyrillic. Leipzigzwo was developed in collaboration with büro uebele.

Characteristic

The basic form structure is based on geometric forms – round elements are circle orientated and an optical linear stroke keeps a clean look. To link the idea of GWZO’s research in history and culture, Leipzigzwo takes historical letterforms of typefaces made in Leipzig, Germany, where GWZO is located. Nevertheless Leipzigzwo forms its own character out of the classical forms to build a unique typeface, which breaks the borders of pure geometry.

Linear geometric forms (hereinafter grey) tend to be too neutral. Leipzigzwo’s unique characters provide an outstanding personality. Although the old style forms using a different form language, Leipzigzwo comes together through its linear stroke.

Leipzigzwo comes with a moderate x-height, and a slight difference in cap- and ascender-height. Thus difficult letter combinations, like ‘Ill’, are still distinguishable and the overall appearance remains strong.

Most of the ending strokes of Leipzigzwo end angularly to prevent the forms from melting together in small sizes, and giving the typeface a friendlier look. All strokes are ending dynamicly, to prevent a static character.

Cyrillic extension

The Cyrillic design was made in cooperation with Ilya Ruderman. Ruderman made sure to transport the general idea of Leipzigzwo into Cyrillic. Therefore he decided to keep the default set more calm with more straight letterforms, while its Bulgarian alternates pick up on Leipzigzwo’s distinctive letter shapes.

Showcase

büro uebele created the corporate design for GWZO using Leipzigzwo as the main visual language, combined with a geometric logo and a strong lead color. büro uebele received the Certificate of Typographic Excellence by The Type Directors Club 2019 for this corporate design.

Typeface Leipzigzwo
Designed by büro uebele and Gabriel Richter
Cyrillic designed by Gabriel Richter and Ilya Ruderman
Project manager Justyna Sikora (büro uebele)
Published in 2017
Fontproduction by Christoph Koeberlin
Pictures by Christian Lindermann (büro uebele)

Leipzigzwo is a trademark of büro uebele
Copyright © 2017 by büro uebele. All rights reserved.