Volvo unveils its new sans-serif typeface

Volvo will have a good time its centennial in 2027 and the corporate is already beginning to ramp up the celebrations. Final 12 months noticed the opening of the World of Volvo in Gothenburg, an enormous round timber construction designed by Scandinavian design specialists Henning Larsen.

2026 will see one other vital design upheaval, albeit on a a lot smaller and fewer apparent scale. The arrival of a brand new model typeface, Volvo Centum, manages to mix the corporate’s apparent love of modernist design with its obsessive pursuit of security.

The work of London-based kind design studio Dalton Maag, the brand new typeface is designed ‘to enhance readability, sharpen consideration, and promote a calmer, safety-focused driving expertise.’

With a lot data conveyed by way of screens – particularly capacitive contact screens – legibility and readability have develop into an integral part of a contemporary automobile’s HMI. Volvo Centum is a sans serif of remarkable readability and ease, designed for what the corporate calls ‘glance-driven environments.’

The primary automobile to be put in with Volvo Centum is the newly revised XC60 mid-size SUV and its upcoming all-new EX60 electrical sibling. Over-the-air updates will then be used to roll out the typeface throughout hundreds of thousands of different vehicles.

If there’s been one criticism of Volvo in recent times, it’s that the corporate has off-loaded big quantities of knowledge and driver enter onto a central touchscreen. Volvo was forward of the curve in adopting Google’s Android in 2017 and had been a key associate within the improvement of Android Auto. How this technique dovetails with the brand new typeface stays to be seen.

Dalton Maag confronted a formidable problem in making certain Volvo Centum labored throughout the model’s many platforms, in addition to being legible in all driving situations and in 35 completely different languages, together with Chinese language, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean.

By making a set of distinct character shapes, the studio has striven to keep away from any unintentional misreading, with clear spacing and a scaling system that simplifies detailed parts to retain legibility.

The studio, based in 1991 by Swiss typeface designer Bruno Maag, has labored throughout plenty of industries, together with media (BBC, Netflix, USA At the moment), transportation (Ducati and Korean Air) and expertise (Vodafone and Wix), amongst others.

DaltonMaag.com, @Dalton.Maag, Volvo.com, @Volvocars