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Sony’s just-broadcast Ghost of Yōtei State of Play has revealed a huge amount of the sumptuous open-world revenge-em-up. 19 minutes of new footage is accompanied by the most chilled NPR-like narration from Sucker Punch developers Jason Connell and Na

Get ready to be mercilessly chainsawed in half by randos rolling around the map like bowling balls, ‘cause the Gears of War: Reloaded multiplayer beta is this happening this weekend and next. It’ll be a nice dose of 2006 nostalgia hitting right in th

La industria marítima está experimentando una transformación importante gracias a la impresión 3D de gran formato. El grupo holandés CEAD, especialista en fabricación aditiva a gran escala, ha inaugurado recientemente su Maritime Application Center (

In this article:See more ▼Post may contain affiliate links which give us commissions at no cost to you.Preppy fonts capture that quintessential East Coast elite vibe – think Nantucket summers, yacht clubs, and monogrammed everything. These typefaces embody the perfect balance of tradition and refinement that makes preppy design so timeless and aspirational. But here’s the thing: not all fonts can pull off that coveted preppy aesthetic. The best preppy fonts have a certain je ne sais quoi – they’re classic without being stuffy, elegant without being pretentious, and refined without being inaccessible. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the most gorgeous preppy fonts that’ll have your designs looking like they belong in the pages of Town & Country magazine. So grab your pearls and let’s dive into this typographic treasure trove! 👋 Psst... Did you know you can get unlimited downloads of 59,000+ fonts and millions of other creative assets for just $16.95/mo? Learn more »The Preppiest Fonts That Define 2025 Let’s start with the crème de la crème – the fonts that truly embody that preppy spirit. I’ve curated this list based on their ability to channel that classic New England charm while remaining versatile enough for modern design needs. Gatsby Prelude Gatsby Prelude is an elegant and modern Art Deco font duo. It combines sans-serif characters with decorative elements, perfect for creating sophisticated designs with a touch of vintage glamour.Burtuqol Burtuqol is a vintage slab serif font that exudes a retro charm. Its bold, chunky serifs and aged appearance make it ideal for projects requiring a nostalgic or timeworn aesthetic.Gafler Gafler is a classy vintage serif font with decorative elements. It combines elegance with a touch of old-world charm, making it perfect for high-end branding and classic design projects.Get 300+ Fonts for FREEEnter your email to download our 100% free "Font Lover's Bundle". For commercial & personal use. No royalties. No fees. No attribution. 100% free to use anywhere. Kagnue Kagnue is a modern and classy serif font. It offers a fresh take on traditional serif typefaces, blending contemporary design with timeless elegance for versatile use in various design contexts.The Blendinroom The Blendinroom is a retro serif typeface featuring luxurious ligatures. Its vintage-inspired design and intricate details make it ideal for creating sophisticated, old-world aesthetics in design projects.MODER BULES MODER BULES is a playful sans-serif font with a fun, childlike appeal. Its quirky design makes it perfect for kids-oriented projects or Halloween-themed designs, adding a touch of whimsy to typography.Nickey Vintage Nickey Vintage is a decorative display font with a strong vintage flair. Its bold, eye-catching characters make it ideal for headlines, logos, and designs that require a striking retro aesthetic.Ladger Ladger is a casual script font that exudes luxury and elegance. Its flowing lines and graceful curves make it perfect for logo designs, high-end branding, and projects requiring a touch of sophistication.Hadnich Hadnich is a modern script font with a brush-like quality. Its versatile design makes it suitable for various applications, from signage to branding, offering a contemporary take on handwritten typography.Belly and Park Belly and Park is a condensed beauty classic font family featuring both serif and sans-serif styles. Its vintage-inspired design and narrow characters make it ideal for creating elegant, space-efficient layouts.Loubag Loubag is a modern retro font family encompassing sans-serif, serif, and decorative styles. Its bold, fashion-forward design makes it perfect for creating eye-catching headlines and trendy branding materials.Petter And Sons Petter And Sons is a romantic beauty script font with decorative elements. Its elegant, flowing design makes it ideal for wedding invitations, luxury branding, and projects requiring a touch of refined beauty.Preteoria Preteoria is a modern cursive font with a sleek, contemporary feel. Its smooth curves and clean lines make it versatile for various design applications, from branding to digital media projects.Delauney Delauney is an Art Deco-inspired sans-serif font that captures the essence of the roaring twenties. Its geometric shapes and sleek lines make it perfect for creating designs with a bold, metropolitan flair.Amadi Vintage Amadi Vintage is a chic and beautiful serif font with a timeless appeal. Its elegant design and vintage-inspired details make it ideal for creating sophisticated, classic-looking designs and branding materials.LEDERSON LEDERSON is a vintage-inspired shadow font. Its weathered look and strong character make it perfect for designs requiring an authentic, aged aesthetic.Fancyou Fancyou is a versatile serif font with alternate characters. Its elegant design and customizable options make it suitable for a wide range of projects, from formal invitations to modern branding materials.Catterpie Font Catterpie is a handwritten script font that mimics natural handlettering. Its fluid, signature-like style makes it perfect for creating personal, authentic-looking designs and branding materials.Jemmy Wonder Jemmy Wonder is a Victorian-inspired serif font with a strong vintage character. Its ornate details and old-world charm make it ideal for creating designs with a classic, nostalgic feel.Monthey Monthey is a bold, elegant vintage display serif font. Its chunky characters and 70s-inspired design make it perfect for creating eye-catching headlines and retro-themed branding materials.Madville Madville is a classy script font with a versatile design. Its elegant curves and smooth transitions make it suitable for a wide range of projects, from formal invitations to modern branding materials.Crowk Crowk is a luxury serif font with a timeless, elegant appeal. Its refined design and classic proportions make it ideal for high-end branding, editorial layouts, and sophisticated design projects.Peachy Fantasy Peachy Fantasy is an Art Nouveau-inspired display font with decorative elements. Its vintage charm and unique character make it perfect for creating eye-catching headlines and artistic design projects.Cormier Cormier is a decorative sans-serif font with a strong artistic flair. Its unique design and fashion-forward aesthetic make it ideal for creating bold, attention-grabbing headlines and branding materials.Syntage Syntage is a decorative modern luxury font with both serif and ornamental elements. Its retro-inspired design and luxurious details make it perfect for high-end branding and sophisticated design projects.Jeniffer Selfies Jeniffer Selfies is a retro-inspired bold font combining sans-serif and script styles. Its playful design and vintage feel make it ideal for creating nostalgic, fun-loving designs and branding materials.The Rilman The Rilman is a ligature-rich rounded sans-serif font with a 90s-inspired design. Its retro charm and smooth edges make it perfect for creating playful, nostalgic designs and branding materials.Milky Croffle Milky Croffle is a classic beauty elegant serif font. Its refined design and timeless appeal make it ideal for creating sophisticated layouts, high-end branding, and projects requiring a touch of traditional elegance. What Makes a Font Feel Preppy? You might be wondering what exactly gives a font that unmistakable preppy vibe. After years of working with typography, I’ve identified several key characteristics that define the preppy aesthetic: Classic Serif Structure: Most preppy fonts are serifs, drawing inspiration from traditional typography used in prestigious publications and academic institutions. These serifs aren’t just decorative – they’re a nod to centuries of refined typographic tradition. Elegant Proportions: Preppy fonts tend to have well-balanced letterforms with moderate contrast between thick and thin strokes. They’re neither too delicate nor too bold – just perfectly poised, like a well-tailored blazer. Timeless Appeal: The best preppy fonts don’t scream “trendy.” Instead, they whisper “timeless.” They’re the typography equivalent of a strand of pearls – always appropriate, never out of style. Sophisticated Details: Look for subtle refinements in letterforms – graceful curves, well-crafted terminals, and thoughtful spacing. These details separate truly preppy fonts from their more pedestrian cousins. Heritage Inspiration: Many preppy fonts draw inspiration from historical typefaces used by Ivy League universities, prestigious publishing houses, and old-money families. This connection to tradition is what gives them their authentic preppy pedigree. Where to Use Preppy Fonts (And Where Not To) Preppy fonts aren’t one-size-fits-all solutions, but when used appropriately, they’re absolutely magical. Here’s where they shine brightest: Wedding Invitations: Nothing says “elegant affair” quite like a beautifully chosen preppy serif. These fonts are perfect for formal invitations, save-the-dates, and wedding stationery that needs to feel sophisticated and timeless. Luxury Branding: Brands targeting affluent audiences or positioning themselves as premium often benefit from preppy typography. Think boutique hotels, high-end fashion, or artisanal goods. Editorial Design: Magazines, newsletters, and publications focusing on lifestyle, fashion, or culture can leverage preppy fonts to establish credibility and sophistication. Corporate Identity: Professional services, law firms, financial institutions, and consulting companies often choose preppy fonts to convey trustworthiness and establishment credibility. Academic Materials: Universities, prep schools, and educational institutions naturally gravitate toward preppy typography that reflects their traditional values and heritage. However, preppy fonts might not be the best choice for: Tech Startups: The traditional nature of preppy fonts can feel at odds with innovation and disruption. Modern sans serifs usually work better for tech companies. Children’s Brands: While elegant, preppy fonts might feel too formal for products targeting young children. Playful, rounded fonts are typically more appropriate. Casual Brands: If your brand personality is laid-back and approachable, overly formal preppy fonts might create distance between you and your audience. How to Choose the Perfect Preppy Font Selecting the right preppy font requires careful consideration of several factors. Here’s my tried-and-true process: Consider Your Audience: Are you designing for actual prep school alumni, or are you trying to capture that aspirational preppy aesthetic for a broader audience? Your target demographic should influence how traditional or accessible your font choice is. Evaluate the Context: A wedding invitation can handle more ornate details than a business card. Consider where your text will appear and how much personality the context can support. Test Readability: Preppy doesn’t mean hard to read. Always test your chosen font at various sizes to ensure it remains legible. Your typography should enhance communication, not hinder it. Think About Pairing: Will you be using this font alone or pairing it with others? Consider how your preppy serif will work alongside sans serifs for body text or script fonts for accents. Consider Your Medium: Some preppy fonts work beautifully in print but struggle on screens. Others are optimized for digital use but lose their charm in print. Choose accordingly. Pairing Preppy Fonts Like a Pro The magic of preppy typography often lies in thoughtful font pairing. Here are some winning combinations that never fail: Classic Serif + Clean Sans Serif: Pair your preppy serif headline font with a crisp, readable sans serif for body text. This creates hierarchy while maintaining sophistication. Traditional Serif + Script Accent: Use a refined script font sparingly for special elements like signatures or decorative text, balanced by a solid preppy serif for main content. Serif + Serif Variation: Sometimes pairing two serifs from the same family – perhaps a regular weight for body text and a bold condensed version for headlines – creates beautiful, cohesive designs. Remember, less is often more with preppy design. Stick to two or three fonts maximum, and let the inherent elegance of your chosen typefaces do the heavy lifting. The Psychology Behind Preppy Typography Understanding why preppy fonts work so well psychologically can help you use them more effectively. These typefaces tap into powerful associations: Trust and Reliability: The traditional nature of preppy fonts suggests stability and permanence. When people see these fonts, they subconsciously associate them with established institutions and time-tested values. Sophistication and Education: Preppy fonts are reminiscent of academic institutions and intellectual pursuits. They suggest refinement, education, and cultural awareness. Exclusivity and Status: Let’s be honest – part of the preppy aesthetic’s appeal is its association with privilege and exclusivity. These fonts can make designs feel more premium and aspirational. Quality and Craftsmanship: The careful attention to typographic detail in preppy fonts suggests similar attention to quality in whatever they’re representing. Modern Takes on Classic Preppy Style While preppy fonts are rooted in tradition, the best designers know how to give them contemporary flair. Here are some ways to modernize preppy typography: Unexpected Color Palettes: Pair traditional preppy fonts with modern colors. Think sage green and cream instead of navy and white, or soft blush tones for a fresh take. Generous White Space: Give your preppy fonts room to breathe with plenty of white space. This modern approach to layout keeps traditional fonts feeling fresh and uncluttered. Mixed Media Integration: Combine preppy typography with photography, illustrations, or graphic elements for a more contemporary feel while maintaining that sophisticated foundation. Strategic Contrast: Pair your refined preppy fonts with unexpected elements – maybe a bold geometric shape or modern photography – to create dynamic tension. Preppy Font Alternatives for Every Budget Not every preppy project has a premium font budget, and that’s okay! Here are some strategies for achieving that coveted preppy look without breaking the bank: Google Fonts Gems: Fonts like Playfair Display, Crimson Text, and Libre Baskerville offer sophisticated serif options that can work beautifully for preppy designs. Font Pairing Magic: Sometimes combining two free fonts thoughtfully can create a more expensive-looking result than using a single premium font poorly. Focus on Execution: A free font used with excellent spacing, hierarchy, and layout will always look better than an expensive font used carelessly. Common Preppy Font Mistakes to Avoid Even with the perfect preppy font, poor execution can ruin the effect. Here are the most common mistakes I see designers make: Overdoing the Decoration: Just because a font has elegant details doesn’t mean you need to add more flourishes. Let the typeface’s inherent sophistication speak for itself. Ignoring Hierarchy: Preppy design relies on clear, elegant hierarchy. Don’t make everything the same size or weight – create visual flow through thoughtful typography scaling. Poor Spacing: Cramped text kills the elegant feel of preppy fonts. Give your typography generous leading and appropriate margins. Wrong Context: Using an ultra-formal preppy font for a casual pizza restaurant’s menu will feel jarring and inappropriate. Match your font choice to your content and audience. The Future of Preppy Typography As we look ahead in 2025, preppy fonts continue to evolve while maintaining their classic appeal. We’re seeing interesting trends emerge: Variable Font Technology: Modern preppy fonts are increasingly available as variable fonts, allowing designers to fine-tune weight, width, and optical size for perfect customization. Screen Optimization: Classic preppy fonts are being redrawn and optimized for digital screens without losing their traditional charm. Inclusive Preppy: Designers are expanding the preppy aesthetic beyond its traditional boundaries, creating fonts that maintain sophistication while feeling more accessible and diverse. Sustainable Design: The timeless nature of preppy fonts aligns perfectly with sustainable design principles – these typefaces won’t look dated next year, making them environmentally responsible choices. Conclusion: Embracing Timeless Elegance Preppy fonts represent more than just letterforms – they’re a gateway to timeless elegance and sophisticated communication. Whether you’re designing wedding invitations for a Martha’s Vineyard ceremony or creating brand identity for a boutique law firm, the right preppy font can elevate your work from merely professional to genuinely distinguished. The beauty of preppy typography lies in its ability to feel both traditional and fresh, formal yet approachable. These fonts have stood the test of time because they tap into something fundamental about how we perceive quality, tradition, and sophistication. As you explore the world of preppy fonts, remember that the best typography choices support your message rather than overshadowing it. Choose fonts that enhance your content’s inherent qualities and speak to your audience’s aspirations and values. So whether you’re channeling that old-money aesthetic or simply want to add a touch of refined elegance to your designs, preppy fonts offer a wealth of possibilities. After all, good typography, like good manners, never goes out of style.

One of the four pillars of good conversation is levity. You needn’t be a comedian, you can but have some funTetra Images, LLC/Alamy Conversation lies at the heart of our relationships – yet many of us find it surprisingly hard to talk to others. We may feel anxious at the thought of making small talk with strangers and struggle to connect with the people who are closest to us. If that sounds familiar, Alison Wood Brooks hopes to help. She is a professor at Harvard Business School, where she teaches an oversubscribed course called “TALK: How to talk gooder in business and life”, and the author of a new book, Talk: The science of conversation and the art of being ourselves. Both offer four key principles for more meaningful exchanges. Conversations are inherently unpredictable, says Wood Brooks, but they follow certain rules – and knowing their architecture makes us more comfortable with what is outside of our control. New Scientist asked her about the best ways to apply this research to our own chats. David Robson: Talking about talking feels quite meta. Do you ever find yourself critiquing your own performance? Alison Wood Brooks: There are so many levels of “meta-ness”. I have often felt like I’m floating over the room, watching conversations unfold, even as I’m involved in them myself. I teach a course at Harvard, and [my students] all get to experience this feeling as well. There can be an uncomfortable period of hypervigilance, but I hope that dissipates over time as they develop better habits. There is a famous quote from Charlie Parker, who was a jazz saxophonist. He said something like, “Practise, practise, practise, and then when you get on stage, let it all go and just wail.” I think that’s my approach to conversation. Even when you’re hyper-aware of conversation dynamics, you have to remember the true delight of being with another human mind, and never lose the magic of being together. Think ahead, but once you’re talking, let it all go and just wail. Reading your book, I learned that a good way to enliven a conversation is to ask someone why they are passionate about what they do. So, where does your passion for conversation come from? I have two answers to this question. One is professional. Early in my professorship at Harvard, I had been studying emotions by exploring how people talk about their feelings and the balance between what we feel inside and how we express that to others. And I realised I just had this deep, profound interest in figuring out how people talk to each other about everything, not just their feelings. We now have scientific tools that allow us to capture conversations and analyse them at large scale. Natural language processing, machine learning, the advent of AI – all this allows us to take huge swathes of transcript data and process it much more efficiently. Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox. Sign up to newsletter The personal answer is that I’m an identical twin, and I spent my whole life, from the moment I opened my newborn eyes, existing next to a person who’s an exact copy of myself. It was like observing myself at very close range, interacting with the world, interacting with other people. I could see when she said and did things well, and I could try to do that myself. And I saw when her jokes failed, or she stumbled over her words – I tried to avoid those mistakes. It was a very fortunate form of feedback that not a lot of people get. And then, as a twin, you’ve got this person sharing a bedroom, sharing all your clothes, going to all the same parties and playing on the same sports teams, so we were just constantly in conversation with each other. You reached this level of shared reality that is so incredible, and I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to help other people get there in their relationships, too. “TALK” cleverly captures your framework for better conversations: topics, asking, levity and kindness. Let’s start at the beginning. How should we decide what to talk about? My first piece of advice is to prepare. Some people do this naturally. They already think about the things that they should talk about with somebody before they see them. They should lean into this habit. Some of my students, however, think it’s crazy. They think preparation will make the conversation seem rigid and forced and overly scripted. But just because you’ve thought ahead about what you might talk about doesn’t mean you have to talk about those things once the conversation is underway. It does mean, however, that you always have an idea waiting for you when you’re not sure what to talk about next. Having just one topic in your back pocket can help you in those anxiety-ridden moments. It makes things more fluent, which is important for establishing a connection. Choosing a topic is not only important at the start of a conversation. We’re constantly making decisions about whether we should stay on one subject, drift to something else or totally shift gears and go somewhere wildly different. Sometimes the topic of conversation is obvious. Even then, knowing when to switch to a new one can be trickyMartin Parr/Magnum Photos What’s your advice when making these decisions? There are three very clear signs that suggest that it’s time to switch topics. The first is longer mutual pauses. The second is more uncomfortable laughter, which we use to fill the space that we would usually fill excitedly with good content. And the third sign is redundancy. Once you start repeating things that have already been said on the topic, it’s a sign that you should move to something else. After an average conversation, most people feel like they’ve covered the right number of topics. But if you ask people after conversations that didn’t go well, they’ll more often say that they didn’t talk about enough things, rather than that they talked about too many things. This suggests that a common mistake is lingering too long on a topic after you’ve squeezed all the juice out of it. The second element of TALK is asking questions. I think a lot of us have heard the advice to ask more questions, yet many people don’t apply it. Why do you think that is? Many years of research have shown that the human mind is remarkably egocentric. Often, we are so focused on our own perspective that we forget to even ask someone else to share what’s in their mind. Another reason is fear. You’re interested in the other person, and you know you should ask them questions, but you’re afraid of being too intrusive, or that you will reveal your own incompetence, because you feel you should know the answer already. What kinds of questions should we be asking – and avoiding? In the book, I talk about the power of follow-up questions that build on anything that your partner has just said. It shows that you heard them, that you care and that you want to know more. Even one follow-up question can springboard us away from shallow talk into something deeper and more meaningful. There are, however, some bad patterns of question asking, such as “boomerasking”. Michael Yeomans [at Imperial College London] and I have a recent paper about this, and oh my gosh, it’s been such fun to study. It’s a play on the word boomerang: it comes back to the person who threw it. If I ask you what you had for breakfast, and you tell me you had Special K and banana, and then I say, “Well, let me tell you about my breakfast, because, boy, was it delicious” – that’s boomerasking. Sometimes it’s a thinly veiled way of bragging or complaining, but sometimes I think people are genuinely interested to hear from their partner, but then the partner’s answer reminds them so much of their own life that they can’t help but start sharing their perspective. In our research, we have found that this makes your partner feel like you weren’t interested in their perspective, so it seems very insincere. Sharing your own perspective is important. It’s okay at some point to bring the conversation back to yourself. But don’t do it so soon that it makes your partner feel like you didn’t hear their answer or care about it. Research by Alison Wood Brooks includes a recent study on “boomerasking”, a pitfall you should avoid to make conversations flowJanelle Bruno What are the benefits of levity? When we think of conversations that haven’t gone well, we often think of moments of hostility, anger or disagreement, but a quiet killer of conversation is boredom. Levity is the antidote. These small moments of sparkle or fizz can pull us back in and make us feel engaged with each other again. Our research has shown that we give status and respect to people who make us feel good, so much so that in a group of people, a person who can land even one appropriate joke is more likely to be voted as the leader. And the joke doesn’t even need to be very funny! It’s the fact that they were confident enough to try it and competent enough to read the room. Do you have any practical steps that people can apply to generate levity, even if they’re not a natural comedian? Levity is not just about being funny. In fact, aiming to be a comedian is not the right goal. When we watch stand-up on Netflix, comedians have rehearsed those jokes and honed them and practised them for a long time, and they’re delivering them in a monologue to an audience. It’s a completely different task from a live conversation. In real dialogue, what everybody is looking for is to feel engaged, and that doesn’t require particularly funny jokes or elaborate stories. When you see opportunities to make it fun or lighten the mood, that’s what you need to grab. It can come through a change to a new, fresh topic, or calling back to things that you talked about earlier in the conversation or earlier in your relationship. These callbacks – which sometimes do refer to something funny – are such a nice way of showing that you’ve listened and remembered. A levity move could also involve giving sincere compliments to other people. When you think nice things, when you admire someone, make sure you say it out loud. This brings us to the last element of TALK: kindness. Why do we so often fail to be as kind as we would like? Wobbles in kindness often come back to our egocentrism. Research shows that we underestimate how much other people’s perspectives differ from our own, and we forget that we have the tools to ask other people directly in conversation for their perspective. Being a kinder conversationalist is about trying to focus on your partner’s perspective and then figuring what they need and helping them to get it. Finally, what is your number one tip for readers to have a better conversation the next time they speak to someone? Every conversation is surprisingly tricky and complex. When things don’t go perfectly, give yourself and others more grace. There will be trips and stumbles and then a little grace can go very, very far. Topics:

Who knows where branding will go in the future? However, for many of us working in the creative industries, it's our job to know. So it's something we need to start talking about, and Frontify Futures wants to be the platform where that conversation unfolds. This ambitious new thought leadership initiative from Frontify brings together an extraordinary coalition of voices—CMOs who've scaled global brands, creative leaders reimagining possibilities, strategy directors pioneering new approaches, and cultural forecasters mapping emerging opportunities—to explore how effectiveness, innovation, and scale will shape tomorrow's brand-building landscape. But Frontify Futures isn't just another content platform. Excitingly, from a design perspective, it's also a living experiment in what brand identity can become when technology meets craft, when systems embrace chaos, and when the future itself becomes a design material. Endless variation What makes Frontify Futures' typography unique isn't just its custom foundation: it's how that foundation enables endless variation and evolution. This was primarily achieved, reveals developer and digital art director Daniel Powell, by building bespoke tools for the project. "Rather than rely solely on streamlined tools built for speed and production, we started building our own," he explains. "The first was a node-based design tool that takes our custom Frame and Hairline fonts as a base and uses them as the foundations for our type generator. With it, we can generate unique type variations for each content strand—each article, even—and create both static and animated type, exportable as video or rendered live in the browser." Each of these tools included what Daniel calls a "chaos element: a small but intentional glitch in the system. A microstatement about the nature of the future: that it can be anticipated but never fully known. It's our way of keeping gesture alive inside the system." One of the clearest examples of this is the colour palette generator. "It samples from a dynamic photo grid tied to a rotating colour wheel that completes one full revolution per year," Daniel explains. "But here's the twist: wind speed and direction in St. Gallen, Switzerland—Frontify's HQ—nudges the wheel unpredictably off-centre. It's a subtle, living mechanic; each article contains a log of the wind data in its code as a kind of Easter Egg." Another favourite of Daniel's—yet to be released—is an expanded version of Conway's Game of Life. "It's been running continuously for over a month now, evolving patterns used in one of the content strand headers," he reveals. "The designer becomes a kind of photographer, capturing moments from a petri dish of generative motion." Core Philosophy In developing this unique identity, two phrases stood out to Daniel as guiding lights from the outset. The first was, 'We will show, not tell.' "This became the foundation for how we approached the identity," recalls Daniel. "It had to feel like a playground: open, experimental, and fluid. Not overly precious or prescriptive. A system the Frontify team could truly own, shape, and evolve. A platform, not a final product. A foundation, just as the future is always built on the past." The second guiding phrase, pulled directly from Frontify's rebrand materials, felt like "a call to action," says Daniel. "'Gestural and geometric. Human and machine. Art and science.' It's a tension that feels especially relevant in the creative industries today. As technology accelerates, we ask ourselves: how do we still hold onto our craft? What does it mean to be expressive in an increasingly systemised world?" Stripped back and skeletal typography The identity that Daniel and his team created reflects these themes through typography that literally embodies the platform's core philosophy. It really started from this idea of the past being built upon the 'foundations' of the past," he explains. "At the time Frontify Futures was being created, Frontify itself was going through a rebrand. With that, they'd started using a new variable typeface called Cranny, a custom cut of Azurio by Narrow Type." Daniel's team took Cranny and "pushed it into a stripped-back and almost skeletal take". The result was Crany-Frame and Crany-Hairline. "These fonts then served as our base scaffolding," he continues. "They were never seen in design, but instead, we applied decoration them to produce new typefaces for each content strand, giving the identity the space to grow and allow new ideas and shapes to form." As Daniel saw it, the demands on the typeface were pretty simple. "It needed to set an atmosphere. We needed it needed to feel alive. We wanted it to be something shifting and repositioning. And so, while we have a bunch of static cuts of each base style, we rarely use them; the typefaces you see on the website and social only exist at the moment as a string of parameters to create a general style that we use to create live animating versions of the font generated on the fly." In addition to setting the atmosphere, it needed to be extremely flexible and feature live inputs, as a significant part of the branding is about the unpredictability of the future. "So Daniel's team built in those aforementioned "chaos moments where everything from user interaction to live windspeeds can affect the font." Design Process The process of creating the typefaces is a fascinating one. "We started by working with the custom cut of Azurio (Cranny) from Narrow Type. We then redrew it to take inspiration from how a frame and a hairline could be produced from this original cut. From there, we built a type generation tool that uses them as a base. "It's a custom node-based system that lets us really get in there and play with the overlays for everything from grid-sizing, shapes and timing for the animation," he outlines. "We used this tool to design the variants for different content strands. We weren't just designing letterforms; we were designing a comprehensive toolset that could evolve in tandem with the content. "That became a big part of the process: designing systems that designers could actually use, not just look at; again, it was a wider conversation and concept around the future and how designers and machines can work together." In short, the evolution of the typeface system reflects the platform's broader commitment to continuous growth and adaptation." The whole idea was to make something open enough to keep building on," Daniel stresses. "We've already got tools in place to generate new weights, shapes and animated variants, and the tool itself still has a ton of unused functionality. "I can see that growing as new content strands emerge; we'll keep adapting the type with them," he adds. "It's less about version numbers and more about ongoing movement. The system's alive; that's the point. A provocation for the industry In this context, the Frontify Futures identity represents more than smart visual branding; it's also a manifesto for how creative systems might evolve in an age of increasing automation and systematisation. By building unpredictability into their tools, embracing the tension between human craft and machine precision, and creating systems that grow and adapt rather than merely scale, Daniel and the Frontify team have created something that feels genuinely forward-looking. For creatives grappling with similar questions about the future of their craft, Frontify Futures offers both inspiration and practical demonstration. It shows how brands can remain human while embracing technological capability, how systems can be both consistent and surprising, and how the future itself can become a creative medium. This clever approach suggests that the future of branding lies not in choosing between human creativity and systematic efficiency but in finding new ways to make them work together, creating something neither could achieve alone.

As AI faces court challenges from Disney and Universal, legal battles are shaping the industry's future | Opinion Silicon advances and design innovations do still push us forward – but the future landscape of the industry is also being sculpted in courtrooms and parliaments Image credit: Disney / Epic Games Opinion by Rob Fahey Contributing Editor Published on June 13, 2025 In some regards, the past couple of weeks have felt rather reassuring. We've just seen a hugely successful launch for a new Nintendo console, replete with long queues for midnight sales events. Over the next few days, the various summer events and showcases that have sprouted amongst the scattered bones of E3 generated waves of interest and hype for a host of new games. It all feels like old times. It's enough to make you imagine that while change is the only constant, at least it's we're facing change that's fairly well understood, change in the form of faster, cheaper silicon, or bigger, more ambitious games. If only the winds that blow through this industry all came from such well-defined points on the compass. Nestled in amongst the week's headlines, though, was something that's likely to have profound but much harder to understand impacts on this industry and many others over the coming years – a lawsuit being brought by Disney and NBC Universal against Midjourney, operators of the eponymous generative AI image creation tool. In some regards, the lawsuit looks fairly straightforward; the arguments made and considered in reaching its outcome, though, may have a profound impact on both the ability of creatives and media companies (including game studios and publishers) to protect their IP rights from a very new kind of threat, and the ways in which a promising but highly controversial and risky new set of development and creative tools can be used commercially. A more likely tack on Midjourney's side will be the argument that they are not responsible for what their customers create with the tool I say the lawsuit looks straightforward from some angles, but honestly overall it looks fairly open and shut – the media giants accuse Midjourney of replicating their copyrighted characters and material, and of essentially building a machine for churning out limitless copyright violations. The evidence submitted includes screenshot after screenshot of Midjourney generating pages of images of famous copyrighted and trademarked characters ranging from Yoda to Homer Simpson, so "no we didn't" isn't going to be much of a defence strategy here. A more likely tack on Midjourney's side will be the argument that they are not responsible for what their customers create with the tool – you don't sue the manufacturers of oil paints or canvases when artists use them to paint something copyright-infringing, nor does Microsoft get sued when someone writes something libellous in Word, and Midjourney may try to argue that their software belongs in that tool category, with users alone being ultimately responsible for how they use them. If that argument prevails and survives appeals and challenges, it would be a major triumph for the nascent generative AI industry and a hugely damaging blow to IP holders and creatives, since it would seriously undermine their argument that AI companies shouldn't be able to include copyrighted material into training data sets without licensing or compensation. The reason Disney and NBCU are going after Midjourney specifically seems to be partially down to Midjourney being especially reticent to negotiate with them about licensing fees and prompt restrictions; other generative AI firms have started talking, at least, about paying for content licenses for training data, and have imposed various limitations on their software to prevent the most egregious and obvious forms of copyright violation (at least for famous characters belonging to rich companies; if you're an individual or a smaller company, it's entirely the Wild West out there as regards your IP rights). In the process, though, they're essentially risking a court showdown over a set of not-quite-clear legal questions at the heart of this dispute, and if Midjourney were to prevail in that argument, other AI companies would likely back off from engaging with IP holders on this topic. To be clear, though, it seems highly unlikely that Midjourney will win that argument, at least not in the medium to long term. Yet depending on how this case moves forward, losing the argument could have equally dramatic consequences – especially if the courts find themselves compelled to consider the question of how, exactly, a generative AI system reproduces a copyrighted character with such precision without storing copyright-infringing data in some manner. The 2020s are turning out to be the decade in which many key regulatory issues come to a head all at once AI advocates have been trying to handwave around this notion from the outset, but at some point a court is going to have to sit down and confront the fact that the precision with which these systems can replicate copyrighted characters, scenes, and other materials requires that they must have stored that infringing material in some form. That it's stored as a scattered mesh of probabilities across the vertices of a high-dimensional vector array, rather than a straightforward, monolithic media file, is clearly important but may ultimately be considered moot. If the data is in the system and can be replicated on request, how that differs from Napster or The Pirate Bay is arguably just a matter of technical obfuscation. Not having to defend that technical argument in court thus far has been a huge boon to the generative AI field; if it is knocked over in that venue, it will have knock-on effects on every company in the sector and on every business that uses their products. Nobody can be quite sure which of the various rocks and pebbles being kicked on this slope is going to set off the landslide, but there seems to be an increasing consensus that a legal and regulatory reckoning is coming for generative AI. Consequently, a lot of what's happening in that market right now has the feel of companies desperately trying to establish products and lock in revenue streams before that happens, because it'll be harder to regulate a technology that's genuinely integrated into the world's economic systems than it is to impose limits on one that's currently only clocking up relatively paltry sales and revenues. Keeping an eye on this is crucial for any industry that's started experimenting with AI in its workflows – none more than a creative industry like video games, where various forms of AI usage have been posited, although the enthusiasm and buzz so far massively outweighs any tangible benefits from the technology. Regardless of what happens in legal and regulatory contexts, AI is already a double-edged sword for any creative industry. Used judiciously, it might help to speed up development processes and reduce overheads. Applied in a slapdash or thoughtless manner, it can and will end up wreaking havoc on development timelines, filling up storefronts with endless waves of vaguely-copyright-infringing slop, and potentially make creative firms, from the industry's biggest companies to its smallest indie developers, into victims of impossibly large-scale copyright infringement rather than beneficiaries of a new wave of technology-fuelled productivity. The legal threat now hanging over the sector isn't new, merely amplified. We've known for a long time that AI generated artwork, code, and text has significant problems from the perspective of intellectual property rights (you can infringe someone else's copyright with it, but generally can't impose your own copyright on its creations – opening careless companies up to a risk of having key assets in their game being technically public domain and impossible to protect). Even if you're not using AI yourself, however – even if you're vehemently opposed to it on moral and ethical grounds (which is entirely valid given the highly dubious land-grab these companies have done for their training data), the Midjourney judgement and its fallout may well impact the creative work you produce yourself and how it ends up being used and abused by these products in future. This all has huge ramifications for the games business and will shape everything from how games are created to how IP can be protected for many years to come – a wind of change that's very different and vastly more unpredictable than those we're accustomed to. It's a reminder of just how much of the industry's future is currently being shaped not in development studios and semiconductor labs, but rather in courtrooms and parliamentary committees. The ways in which generative AI can be used and how copyright can persist in the face of it will be fundamentally shaped in courts and parliaments, but it's far from the only crucially important topic being hashed out in those venues. The ongoing legal turmoil over the opening up of mobile app ecosystems, too, will have huge impacts on the games industry. Meanwhile, the debates over loot boxes, gambling, and various consumer protection aspects related to free-to-play models continue to rumble on in the background. Because the industry moves fast while governments move slow, it's easy to forget that that's still an active topic for as far as governments are concerned, and hammers may come down at any time. Regulation by governments, whether through the passage of new legislation or the interpretation of existing laws in the courts, has always loomed in the background of any major industry, especially one with strong cultural relevance. The games industry is no stranger to that being part of the background heartbeat of the business. The 2020s, however, are turning out to be the decade in which many key regulatory issues come to a head all at once, whether it's AI and copyright, app stores and walled gardens, or loot boxes and IAP-based business models. Rulings on those topics in various different global markets will create a complex new landscape that will shape the winds that blow through the business, and how things look in the 2030s and beyond will be fundamentally impacted by those decisions.