Meal Solution, a custom typeface for Barilla
Meal Solution is a custom font developed under the creative direction of FutureBrand Milan, for Barilla. It has been used for several years on the labels of the sauces sold all around the world. It is a script typeface, that required to be easily read on packaging; it had to be clear, refined and convey a sense of simplicity.
Outlines are clean, the moderate contrast helps to have a wordmark that is perfectly readable at the intended size, and does not create a sense of fuzziness in an overall layout. The counters are open, giving the letters enough space to resist the printing, white on dark blue, without losing detail.
The scope of the project didn’t leave space for the creation of alternate letters, that in a script typeface help to achieve a sense of natural variation. To overcome this limit, once we defined the project's boundaries, we created a system that allowed letters to look good in any combination. Or, at least, in most of the situations. Towards the end of the development, to fix the immediate need of specific names, we introduced a very limited number of ligatures.
Meal Solution conveys simplicity and friendliness; it has comfortable shapes keeping a structural rationality that makes it work very well in combination with sans serif fonts.