Race Against Dementia
Established by Formula 1 legend Sir Jackie Stewart, Race Against Dementia was created in order to fund breakthrough and innovative dementia research. Motivated by the diagnosis of his wife, Helen, the charitable initiative’s goals are far-reaching: to ultimately discover a cure for the condition as well as finance preventative medicine and practices in the interim.
- Typeface
- Helen
- Comissioner
- Brand Union / Race Against Dementia
- Year
- 2016
- Styles
- 2 Styles: Regular, Display
- Coverage
- Adobe Latin-2
- Classification
- Sans Serif
- URL
- superunion.com
- raceagainstdementia.com
)
)
To lay the groundwork for the group’s work, design agency Brand Union were hired to design a visual identity for the organisation that would be at once memorable, disruptive, and expressive of the charity’s story. To assist in achieving this, Colophon was commissioned to create a customised version of the existing Montefiore typeface: A condensed sans-serif whose regularised rhythm and sturdiness could accommodate an alteration that would purposefully unsettle its structure.
)
)
)
)
Produced as part of the overall brand toolkit and named in honour of Sir Jackie’s wife of 54 years, Helen is an all-caps display type with both intact and disjointed letterforms, creating an unlikely typographic landscape that is interrupted at points by fragmented characters. These forms — which disrupt cadence and legibility just enough to call attention to themselves — seek to highlight the disorientation experienced by those suffering from dementia.
)
)
)
)
)
)
Complemented by an imperfect, oblique ‘D’ monogram — the italicisation a nod to Stewart’s racing history — the Helen typeface provides an intentionally variable foundation for Race Against Dementia’s minimal brand identity. The type’s ultimate goal, of course: prompting empathy in the viewer and spurring would-be patrons into action.
In addition to fully bespoke and ground-up commissions, Colophon also creates customisations of our existing typefaces and type families, as shown here with retail typeface Montefiore.
Recent Custom Projects
View all
