Get in, loser! Dinamo’s auto-inspired typeface has arrived, with 108 fonts in the boot

Its Nice That: Features Graphic Design Typography Font Research Campaign Travel Process Get in, loser! Dinamo’s auto-inspired typeface has arrived, with 108 fonts in the boot Six years in the making, ABC Schengen packs in the strong, fast-paced energy of industrial fonts as seen on cranes, cars and cargo. Share Features Graphic Design Typography Font Research Campaign Travel Process Share Any good type nerd knows that letter-based inspiration is anywhere you look for it. Your local cornershop, shop signs on your little jaunt abroad, the shelves of a fusty old library, and even behind the wheel on the open road.

This is where Dinamo’s latest release, Schengen, began – a multi-weight masterpiece that’s named after Europe’s border-free zone and draws on the aesthetics of vehicles, industry, trade and manufacturing. Or, as summarised in the words of its designer Seb McLauchlan: “everything you find in industrial parks and ports”. Designed by Seb alongside designer Luke Charsley, the project is a lengthy six years in the making, and marks something of a full circle moment for Dinamo.

Its co-founders Johannes Breyer and Fabian Harb first met Seb in a pub in London nearly a decade ago and hit it off over a shared passion for fonts; a foundry in infancy and a designer at the start of his career, Seb became the first artist to release a typeface (Ginto) through Dinamo.

The following ten years has seen the growth of the foundry and Seb’s partnership, as well as their dual dedication to purposefulness and intentionally, building worlds and concepts for typefaces that go beyond mere visual appeal. Such a mammoth project (Schengen has a whopping 108 fonts, three companion revival typefaces, and an immensely fun, vehicle-filled campaign) calls for many hands, and numerous creative minds got stuck into the rendering, graphic creation and more to bring it to life.

Below, Seb and Johannes discuss the benefits of collaborating with so many people, as well as touching on the classic typefaces that provided the basis for Schengen, messy reference collecting, the catharsis of releasing work and the excitement of seeing your fonts pop up where you least expect them. So buckle up, and enjoy! It’s Nice That (INT): What first inspired ABC Schengen? Seb McLauchlan (SM): It started pretty simply as a lot of type projects do, with a key reference. In this case it was two really classic and quite obvious typefaces within the canon of European type, which is Helvetica and Eurostile.

Europeans call it ‘Euro-st-ee-lay’. I don’t know if you do that, Johannes, do you say ‘Euro-st-ee-lay’? Johannes Breyer (JB): No! But yesterday I was thinking about it. I should change the pronunciation. SM: I think that’s how the Italians do it… So the question was how do we kind of describe these references within one width? But then, within a few different widths, how do we try to evolve the tension between those two references across the width? As Schengen gets wider, the reference to Eurostile becomes clearer.

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The introduction of a versatile typeface with a strong narrative connection to movement and commerce is significant for brand strategy professionals, offering new tools for communication and identity.