We have a heavy
Emergency
but we also have hope.
Our two identity typefaces
Emergency heavy
Emergency Heavy—Climate Emergency Fund’s custom typeface—is strong and unapologetic and communicates the urgency of the crisis. The font, which is uppercase only, contains three subtly different versions of each letter, reflecting the variations present in the logotype and the natural inconsistency of wood type—or hand painted banners.
It is used in the wordmark; for statistics; small headlines and labels.
Emergency Heavy is drawn by E Chester / bspk.xyz, taking its starting starting point in Obbligato—a font he originally designed for the New York City Opera:
“The overall weight was increased, and the letterforms were treated as though they were old wood type: top and bottom curves flattened, lowercase jettisoned, descending elements eliminated. These weren't arbitrary stylistic choices but a conscious reference to the urgency of letterpress-printed broadsheets and street-level communication. The result is a typeface that foregrounds immediacy over perfection — a design philosophy that mirrors the Climate Emergency Fund's own mission.”
“A typeface that foregrounds immediacy over perfection—a design philosophy that mirrors the Climate Emergency Fund’s own mission.”
Esperanza Stencil
Fighting fossil fuels together
The second identity typeface for Climate Emergency Fund is called Esperanza—Spanish for ‘hope’.
Esperanza is a stencil typeface inspired by the lettering stamped into stoneware manufactured in the the Athens Pottery Works, Hudson Valley in the 1900’s.
Stencils have long been used as an accessible method to affix messages of resistance onto walls or pavements, making this typeface appropriate for a funder of grassroots groups around the world.
Esperanza stencil is used for large and medium headlines and short paragraphs of text.
Disruptive protest gets results
Schibstedt Grotesk
The font used for body copy is called Schibstedt Grotesk and is available for free from Google Fonts. Unlike the two other fonts which are licensed specifically for CEF, this one is open source and widely available—allowing CEF to use it inside Google apps and easily produce documents and letters.
Schibstedt Grotesk, a fairly neutral font with low contrast and high legibility, allows Esperanza and Emergency Heavy to provide the bulk of the typographic messaging for the Climate Emergency Fund.
