Graphic designer working with branding, type design and lettering.
Copenhagen based.
Contact at:
theopedersen@hotmail.com
What Londres Regular, Typedesign
When 2025
Why Final Thesis, MA, The Royal Danish Academy
I’m tying up my typographic practice, by bridging these contrasting, yet connected disciplines in the multi-functional typeface Londres—uniting two extremes; chancery inspired lettering and hard-working features of a transitional typographic workhorse.
Typography relies on specified attributes & information, that can “be passed on” to any given user (Smeijers, Counterpunch, 1996) to create text that fit in every format. Lettering adapts to context; it is expressive and image-based. Londres unites these approaches within a single typeface, conceived as a spectrum with two poles: a restrained typographic extreme and an expressive lettering extreme.
Between these poles, a wide range of stylistic alternates allows the user to adjust the level of expression—from subtle flair to exaggerated ornamentation. All supported by user-friendly coding and OpenType features like contextual alternates, that prevents letters clashing, while ensuring a dynamic character exchange, minimizing duplicates and making the font a seamless and dynamic tool for creating lettering, text and everything in between, with expressive lettering possible even in running text.
The typeface is named after Albert Londres, a French journalist whose 1924 Tour de France report, "Les Forçats de la Route" ("The Convicts of the Road") shaped the mythos of the Tour, and brought attention to the hardships and grandeur of professional cycling.
The typographic extreme is partly based on the classic typeface Fransk Antikva (aka. Romain no. 16) by french type foundry Deberny & Cie, as found in the book “Jorden Rundt paa Cykle” (Kai Thorenfeldt, 1926).
Formally Londres lives within the Scotch Roman category; typefaces revising transitional styles for text use, by mixing them with old-style features. This balance softens its transitional structure, making it adaptable for lettering. Ascenders and descenders are kept short across styles, allowing lettering alternates to integrate seamlessly with text.
Old-style features: (nearly) oblique axis and old-style stress in ‘e’ and ‘c’. Remnants/subtle hints of broad pen calligraphy in ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘p’ and ‘q’.
Transitional: High contrast in the ‘e’ finial.
Transitional features: (semi) high contrast in the shoulder of the ‘n’. Symmetrical, upright axis in ‘o’. Upright ‘a’. No serifs + vertical beak and spur on ‘s’. Vertical axis and stress in capitals (the ‘D’). High contrast in capitals (eg. ‘R’).
A specimen folder that doubles as a poster. The inside presents the specimen; the reverse functions as a poster. Riso printed on old newspaper, this is a mix of classicism and the contemporary - just as Londres itself is it.
Londres’ strength lies in the meeting of text and lettering: text with a flair. Lettering that behaves typographically. Alternates that seamlessly blend in with the default typographic characters. So, this is not another Bookman or Caslon Swash - this is so much more. This is lettering and typography. System and soul.
ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) is an international non-profit organization dedicated to typography and typeface design. Its annual conference has taken place every year since 1957.
I was fortunate enough to be among 80 selected speakers, out of more than 200 submissions for the 2025 edition, held at my former school, The Royal Danish Academy. Shown here are the poster design i brought as an attention grabber and a visual informative tool, explaining the basics and showcasing the design of Londres.
The Royal Danish Academy Graphic Communication Design, 2025
Typedesign, font production, graphic design, photography, animation and text by Theodor Ballisager