Welcome one and all to round three of Seen & Heard; our Woody’s Round Up of what’s been tickling our fancy this month – and if your fancies are anything like ours, we’re sure you’ll be tickled too. Enjoy!

Bandito Branding
Magpie Studio

We’ll kick things off with Magpie Studio’s branding banditry for Californian coffee rebels, Bandido. From the reworking of the B on their cups to form a bandit mask, to the names of their signature blends, to the hijacking of rival coffee brands loyalty cards – their brand screams mischief from the outset. Come awards season, we’re pretty sure they’ll be adding hearts and minds to their kitty of stolen goods.

See a bit more on Magpie Studio’s website ›

Tena Man – Stirling Gravitas
AMV BBDO / Biscuit Films

We’ve laughed so hard over the last 2 years at Stirling Gravitas’ adventures in control, that we’ve all had happy accidents. Luckily these adverts for Tena Man are so good, we all bought our own after the first time of viewing. So, despite us laughing just as hard at this new iteration of the campaign, we were all protected. How’s that for effective advertising?

Prospectus Typeface
Lost Type Co-Op

Prospectus Pro is an absolutely gorgeous contemporary serif from the Lost Type Co-Op, available in a whopping 48 styles. Crisp, clean and classic on first glance, up the weight and you’ll see the sharp angles and high-contrast characteristics really take over. Inspired by Imperial Roman calligraphy and inscriptions, Prospectus looks like a great workhorse family, and one that we’d love to put it to good use on the right project.

Have a play with the interactive specimen ›

The Interrobang
99% Invisible

Those curious characters over at 99% Invisible feed us regular knowledge nuggets on all sorts, but it was Joe Rosenberg’s coverage of one obscure glyph that really caught our attention this month. The interrobang – the mutant love child of the question mark and exclamation mark – was born of one Martin Speckter, an ad man looking to scratch a particular advertising itch. By welding the exclamation and question mark characters together into one easily recognisable symbol, a campaign’s rhetorical leading line would, in theory, have more impact. Sadly, the mark didn’t catch on, and so support for the character is scant – but the story is fascinating.

Listen to the podcast episode on 99% Invisible ›

David Bowie Is Here
Spotify

Spotify have gone all Banksy, sneaking into David Bowie’s local New York subway station in the dead of night with their paint brushes and superglue, and turning it into a museum of the the sadly departed legend. That’s not quite how it happened, but the hijacking of the station as an exhibition space is executed perfectly, and a fitting tribute to the Thin White Duke.

Peep the case study on Behance ›

Trajan: How one typeface took over movie posters
Vox

It’s 2018. There’s a Starbucks on every street corner. There’s an iPhone in everyone’s pocket. There’s a Trajan on every movie poster. No it’s not a citizen of Troy with a South African accent, it’s the typeface that has somehow over time become “the Arial of movie posters”. Vox have done a lovely piece on its origin and why it’s become so prevalent on the posters we see today.

So there we have it! We hope your fancies have been positively tickled, and we’ll see you next month for Volume 4. Sayonara. Au Revoir. See ya…