Industry: Design

Nameplate for Aftonbladet

A variable font with three axes used to redesign the nameplate of a newspaper founded in 1830

Greg Gazdowicz and Christian Schwartz, working with consultant Anna Thurfjell, redesigned the nameplate and logo system for Aftonbladet, Sweden's most widely read newspaper, founded in 1830. The project drew on two Georg Trump typefaces—Schadow and City—as historical anchors, mapping a designspace between them across axes of width, squareness, and contrast. A variable font enabled methodical exploration of those axes before final decisions were made. The resulting system includes three optical sizes, solid and shaded variants, a simplified 'A' icon, and a full alphabet to support sub-brands such as Sportbladet.

Insights

Gazdowicz built a variable font with axes for width, squareness, and contrast, allowing systematic one-axis-at-a-time evaluation before committing to final letterforms.
The team identified that the nameplate's yellow fill and black shadow carried more brand recognition than the precise letterforms, giving substantial latitude in redrawing.
Three optical sizes were created with calibrated outline weights and shadow detail; a separate dark-background version preserves the shadow effect.
The alphabet was extended to solid and shaded variants so the client team can generate new sub-brand logotypes as needed, governed by a brand book Thurfjell produced.