SMCC approached Pentagram to create a bespoke wordmark and Latin-script brand typeface to serve as both the company’s wordmark and Latin-script typeface palette.
As an expression of SMCC’s brand personality the typeface needed to communicate the seamless ease of digital banking with a distinctive style and appropriately align with the stature and trust SMBC has built
Focusing on subtle form alterations and a humanist stroke style that created a strong sense of forward momentum within the ductus—the calligraphic flow between letters—to communicate connection and progression.
The stroke style and structural alterations also create a connection with the subtle calligraphic elements present in the brand's Japanese typeface.
Pentagram’s Headline and Text typeface family is the centrepiece of a new, modern visual system across print and digital for the company. The collection comprises of three weights in each hierarchical style, as well as a special logo weight
Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company (SMCC), part of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), is Japan’s primary digital banking and payments provider. SMCC approached Pentagram to create a bespoke wordmark and Latin-script brand typeface to serve as both the company’s wordmark and Latin-script typeface palette.
As part of SMCC’s internal brand update, which centres on a strategy to merge its existing institutional trust with the ease and effortless positivity of digital banking, Pentagram’s Headline and Text typeface family is the centrepiece of a new, modern visual system across print and digital for the company. The collection comprises of three weights in each hierarchical style, as well as a special logo weight used for naming lockups such as the ‘Mitsui Sumitomo Card’ used on the bank cards themselves.
As an expression of SMCC’s brand personality the typeface needed to communicate the seamless ease of digital banking with a distinctive style; appropriately align with the stature and trust SMBC has built as a major Japanese institution; and pair with their brand team’s selected Japanese typeface Tazugane Gothic.
Working with Florian Runge, Pentagram developed the style around a balanced grotesque structure, focusing on subtle form alterations and a humanist stroke style that created a strong sense of forward momentum within the ductus—the calligraphic flow between letters—to communicate connection and progression.
A subtle tilt runs through the skeleton and stroke stress, even characters that appear round at first glance were altered to include this forward movement. Increased diagonal angularity to shoulders and out-strokes furthers the cursive feel, building on the overall rationality of the structure with a rich and distinctive textural personality.
The stroke style and structural alterations also create a connection with the subtle calligraphic elements present in the Japanese typeface. Modern Japanese styles typically maintain subtle hallmarks of brush calligraphy to appear natural and read comfortably, so creating a Latin style that leveraged a similar approach for the purpose of brand narrative also helped create a natural connection.
The text style reduced the prominence of some of the stylistic features to increase character distinction, and legibility as a result, whilst retaining the overall tonal approach. This gives SMCC a robust and connected typographic palette able to produce everything from digital UI and corporate materials to advertising and product brand wordmarks.
