Neon Gray

Neon Gray are a multidisciplinary art and design kinship from Baltimore, MD and San Francisco, CA. They focus on typography, photography, print, packaging, web, analogue design and art direction. After looking at their page they have quite an impressive portfolio of wide ranging pieces. However it is their typographic pieces that I was most drawn to. Below are a few examples of my favourite pieces.

BACK ON TRACK
2007
Three steps towards recharging the godforce of your crystal.
Back on Track is a series of analog designs created by laser-cutting manila folders. We used our stencil typeface, Waving Hello.

THE SLOW SLEEP
2007
The Slow Sleep is a custom typeface that was created for use on various personal and commercial projects. The aim was to create a font that showcased the boldness of retro fonts that have recently been making a comeback, but to also steer away from prevalent sharp right angles, drawing inspiration from rounded retro fonts like Frankfurter. The name was chosen because of its reminiscence to big dilated pupils and being in bed all day long.

SAY EVERYTHING
2007
Make custom messages spelled out in your favorite office supply! The font Olimpyc was created specifically for this purpose (although we like it on the screen/in print too). Each letter was designed within the constraints of a standard 3"x3” Post-It pad. There are 26 pads in all; one for each letter of the alphabet. Each set comes with a separate sheet of punctuation marks.

In conclusion I like all the above pieces because the fonts are bold and stand out. Their legibility is crystal clear, there is no looking at the type and taking a few seconds to figure out what it being communicated. The messages are concise and therefore these typefaces are very successful in their aims. They are all sans serif, obviously taking inspiration from the Bauhaus approach and are most probably visible and recognisable from greater distances.