OTTO Play
Character Type · Henning Skibbe
A bespoke custom typeface for German retailer OTTO in which every letter of the alphabet carries its own distinct stylistic treatment, mixed automatically via OpenType rules based on German letter frequency.
About
Designed by Henning Skibbe at Character Type in partnership with brand agency Mutabor, OTTO Play blends a stable base of OTTO Sans with a new expressive alphabet where each letter is assigned one of four design tonalities. An OpenType script automates the substitution of glyphs based on German letter and syllable frequency, ensuring a consistently varied but coherent typographic result without manual intervention. The project won multiple ADC awards, a Red Dot best-of-the-best, and a Corporate Design Award.
Classification
A bespoke display typeface in which each letter of the alphabet carries a distinct stylistic treatment drawn from four design tonalities, making it a multi-style display system rather than a conventional type family.