ABC Diatype — 23 cases

What ABC Diatype is like to brand with

ABC Diatype takes its name from Berthold’s Diatype phototypesetting machine, and its shapes from the Swiss neo-grotesque tradition that machine set. Dinamo describes it as warm yet sharp and built for reading on screen, which understates how unusual that combination is: most faces in this genre buy neutrality by giving up warmth.

What distinguishes it in practice is not the retail family but what studios do with it. More than any other typeface in this catalogue, Diatype appears as the starting point for a commissioned cut — On, GOAT, REKKI and Istituto Svizzero all licensed a customisation of it rather than adopting it as shipped. Dinamo sells that path openly, and it has become the family’s defining use case: a brand gets ownable letterforms without paying for an alphabet drawn from nothing.

The retail version behaves accordingly. It is competent everywhere and dominant nowhere, which makes it an excellent base under a strong colour system or a distinctive mark, and a weak choice if the typography itself has to be the idea.

ABC Diatype in 5 projects, read closely

Each of these was checked against the studio’s own case page, which still credits ABC Diatype today. Where a studio explains its reasoning, the wording is theirs.

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  On

  Dinamo · Bespoke customisation (On Diatype)

  Dinamo rounded Diatype’s circular characters to true geometric circles and simplified its punctuation so the type echoes On’s stacked O-and-N logo. Dinamo notes that On chose Diatype for its clean functionality and Swiss design roots, and the package was extended to Black weights plus Mono and Semi Mono cuts. A contextual alternate even substitutes the logo when a designer types “[logo]” — customisation as production tooling, not just as styling.

  Full case on D1S1 → · Studio’s own writeup ↗

• 

  GOAT

  Dinamo · Bespoke customisation (GOAT Diatype)

  The opposite adjustment from On: Dinamo streamlined Diatype’s reduced forms further still — straightening the R’s leg, shortening the Q’s tail — to create what it calls a blunt, edgy tone suited to detail-oriented fashion labels. Screen optimisation and variable axes were part of the brief for a marketplace whose product photography has to do the talking. Two brands, one source family, opposite results.

  Full case on D1S1 → · Studio’s own writeup ↗

• 

  WHEN Fertility

  Universal Favourite · Single face, wordmark to body copy

  Universal Favourite states it plainly: WHEN’s typeface is ABC Diatype, used for everything from wordmark to body copy, chosen for its modernity and scientific edge. Against a palette of lemon and neutrals, that single-face discipline is what makes an at-home fertility test read as calm rather than clinical. A good demonstration of Diatype carrying a whole identity when the colour is doing the differentiating.

  Full case on D1S1 → · Studio’s own writeup ↗

• U

  Up Norway

  Snøhetta · The informative voice of a two-voice system

  Snøhetta gave the travel curator two deliberate typographic voices: Diatype as the informative and formal one, ABC Arizona as the emotional and impactful one. Both are Dinamo, which keeps the pair coherent while the split does the work. Against dynamic colour and vivid illustration, Diatype is what stops the emotional layer from becoming the whole brand.

  Full case on D1S1 → · Studio’s own writeup ↗

• 

  Comédias do Minho

  André Cruz · Structure inside deliberate typographic chaos

  André Cruz replaced CMYK with four direct colours for this Portuguese cultural programme, producing quasi-psychedelic imagery — and set it with a deliberately unruly stack of families in which ABC Diatype appears alongside ABC Gravity, Söhne and a dozen others. Here Diatype is the stable element the disruption is measured against. Evidence that the family’s neutrality is a feature in maximalist work, not only in restrained work.

  Full case on D1S1 → · Studio’s own writeup ↗

Paired with, in real projects

Recorded co-use only: each pair is named together on one studio’s page for one project. Treat it as evidence that the combination has been shipped, not as a recommendation.

ABC Arizona — Up Norway

Snøhetta’s explicit split — Diatype informative and formal, Arizona emotional and impactful.

Diatype Semi-Mono — Modulize

Snøhetta combined Diatype with its Semi-Mono cut to add contrast and rhythm without introducing a second voice.

Söhne — Comédias do Minho

Both named in the same publication — co-use inside an intentionally crowded typographic system, not a recommended duo.

If ABC Diatype is not the right fit

Editorial recommendations, not credits: these are our own suggestions, chosen to explain a difference rather than to list similar names. Each links to the cases set in it, so the claim is checkable.

Söhne

Grounded in Akzidenz-Grotesk and the NYC Subway’s Standard signage rather than in phototypesetting, so it carries more analogue warmth and a heavier institutional register. The better pick when the brand wants authority rather than precision.

ABC Favorit

Same foundry, opposite temperament: lower contrast, geometric rigidity and a few deliberate oddities. Choose it when you want the type to be slightly strange on purpose.

Untitled Sans

Deliberately plain and anonymous — Kris Sowersby drew it in the spirit of Jasper Morrison’s Super Normal. If Diatype still feels too characterful under a busy identity, this is the quieter floor.