What’s the national dish of Sweden? Not sure? How about the the flag? Yes? Blue background with a yellow cross. Take that thinking a step further and Sweden have created their own typeface. No, it’s not going to be called ‘Ikea Sans’, funnily enough, it’s will be known as “Sweden Sans”. The typeface, which has been based on Swedish signage from the 1950’s will be used by different government agencies to create a singular visual brand identity.
Sweden Sans will now replace all the multiple fonts that the Swedish government uses. Type designer Stefan Hattenbach of Stockholm-based Söderhavet describes this process. “Aesthetics are very important in Sweden and we have a long tradition of great architecture, furniture and design – so this was the natural next step,”
“We worked on it for about six months, really going into the details, to create Sweden Sans – a modern, geometric font,” Hattenbach said. The result is a basic sans serif font with some modern tweaks”
This is a real statement of intent. Our identity and what it means to be part of a shared group are incredibly complex themes. If we look at trying to replicate this process for a British identity you can understand the potential pitfalls on every corner. This is where I find the process of creating a national identity most interesting. Internal identity where the population of a county have a shared value system and externally in a globalised market place where countries are competing with each on every conceivable level.
If you close your eyes and think about a different country. Then imagine what font would represent them?
Think of France. Full of flair and flourishes. An elegant script typeface that looks beautiful on a page. Italy, Brazil, India, what do you think? It would be interesting to see what typefaces you think off represents a country. The Swiss, probably have a good claim on Helvetica! For the UK I’m going to nominate ‘Transport’ a sans serif typeface first designed for road signs in the United Kingdom and was created between 1957 and 1963 by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_(typeface)
https://medium.com/matter/sweden-has-its-own-font-204074d453fc
James Chantler is a creative thinker and Creative Director at Happy Creative, a full service marketing and creative agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
