Typeface Design for Cargo

A music club commission that became a retail typeface

Cargo was designed by Gavillet & Rust for the visual identity of the 2002 Swiss National Exhibition's eponymous music club. Built on a geometric sans-serif skeleton, its defining feature is curved stencil cuts that form rounded bridges between letters, producing connected open spaces and a continuous, solid texture. The design draws loose inspiration from the logo of Marsh, a stencil-machine manufacturer, and is intended for headline and display use.

Set in Cargo

Insights

The curved stencil bridges create open, connected spaces between letters, giving the typeface a continuous, symbiotic texture at display sizes.
The design originated as a commissioned visual identity in 2002 before being commercialized through Optimo.
Its source reference was the Marsh company logo—a stencil-machine brand—used loosely, not literally, as formal inspiration.
Gavillet & Rust developed the face within a geometric sans-serif framework, keeping the underlying structure rational while the stencil treatment adds graphic character.