Alpina: Custom letters for a familiar Colombian brand

Alpina’s identity appears on products that form part of everyday life in Colombia. Developing typography for such a familiar brand means working with a visual memory that people already carry. Our contribution to the identity project developed with LIP brought together calligraphy, lettering and the design of a custom type family.

Working with recognition

Alpina’s script lettering, medallion and mountain were central to the identity renewed in 2021. The typographic work formed part of a broader effort to carry that recognition into a new stage of the brand’s life.

The name and the supporting typography each have a role in that relationship. The lettering gives a particular shape to the word Alpina. The family supplies a much larger vocabulary, allowing the brand to write new words, organise information and communicate beyond its name.

A family for changing content

The custom family comprises fourteen styles. That range provides a shared foundation for the different levels of a composition, from a prominent message to supporting information. Designers can vary emphasis while retaining a relationship between the words on a pack, a campaign piece or a digital communication.

Packaging makes this relationship especially visible. Product names, descriptions and short messages occupy different amounts of space and compete for attention within a limited surface. A family designed for the brand gives those changing combinations of content a consistent typographic starting point.

Lettering and type design together

The project connects two scales of working with letters. At the scale of the name, decisions concern the precise relationships within a familiar word. Across the family, those decisions expand into a resource that other designers can use with content that continues to change.

Alpina demonstrates how custom typography can become part of an identity’s everyday vocabulary. The letters support a brand through repeated encounters, giving continuity to messages that serve different purposes.

Custom typeface created exclusively for Alpina. Not available for retail licensing.