Press Release
Bronze A' Design Award in Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design Goes to Lubea Serif Type Specimen Exhibition by Paul Robb
The international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition recognizes Paul Robb for graphics, illustration and visual communication design
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 17, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Lubea Serif Type Specimen Exhibition by Paul Robb, designed for S6 Foundry, has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design category. The recognition forms part of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
About the Bronze A' Design Award
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
About Lubea Serif Type Specimen Exhibition
Lubea Serif Specimen Exhibition is a typographic installation that presents a type specimen as a spatial and editorial experience. A continuous printed surface flows through a minimal wooden structure, emphasizing scale, rhythm, and curvature. The display shows the refined contrast, expressive italics, wide weight range, and advanced OpenType features of the Lubea Serif typeface. Visitors move through the space and read the typography as the printed surface unfolds. The exhibition presents type as an immersive form of visual communication.
About Paul Robb
Paul Robb is a Creative Director and Type designer with over 30 years of experience, and is a Professor of Graphic design at the University of Perugia, and a Professor on the MA Brand design course of the Academia of Perugia. Since 2000 he is Creative Director for Salt&Pepper an award-winning multidisciplinary contemporary graphic design studio focused on transforming brands and businesses. Expressiveness and authenticity are the basis of his work which is completed with a balanced fusion of creative design and technology. In 2020 he started S6 Foundry which develops creative fonts by designers for designers.
Award Record
Paul Robb is a winner of 24 A' Design Awards, including this recognition. The awards span the editions from 2018 - 2019 to 2025 - 2026 of the A' Design Award & Competition.
About the A' Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design Award
The A' Graphic Design Award is an international graphic design competition recognizing good graphic designs by best creative agencies and designers worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to graphic designers, communication designers, graphic artists and illustrators from all countries. Entries typically include logos, posters, infographics, brochures, packaging designs and business cards. Awarded graphic designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/graphics
About A' Design Award & Competition
A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/179606
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/179606
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!179606
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/175604
- Further Information from the Laureate: http://www.s6foundry.com
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
###
Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Lubea Serif Type Specimen Exhibition
- Function
- Type Specimen Exhibition
- Category
- Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Branding & Advertising and Arts
- Colors
- Dark Gray, Linen, Rosy Brown, Light Gray and Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- S6 Foundry
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Paul Robb
- Country
- Italy
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #179606
Credits
- Team
- Paul Henry Robb & Moira Baroloni
- Image Credits
- Paul Henry Robb & Moira Bartoloni
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Lubea Serif Specimen Exhibition is a typographic installation that translates a type specimen into a spatial, editorial experience. A continuous printed surface flows through a minimal wooden structure, emphasizing scale, rhythm, and curvature. The design showcases Lubea Serif’s refined contrast, expressive italics, wide weight range, and advanced OpenType features. By merging typography, object, and space, the exhibition elevates type from static display to immersive design communication.
- Inspiration
- The design of Lubea Serif is inspired by the dialogue between classical book typography and contemporary visual culture. Its forms are informed by historical serif construction, refined through extensive typographic research, optical correction, and modern digital drawing techniques. The project seeks to balance elegance and functionality, creating a versatile typeface that conveys authority, warmth, and clarity across editorial, branding, and cultural applications.
- Research
- Type of Research: practice-based typographic research. Research Objectives: to design a contemporary serif balancing elegance, readability, and versatility. Methodology: historical analysis combined with iterative digital drawing and testing. Data Collection and Tools Used: visual references, proofing texts, and Glyphs software. Participants or Experiments: designer-led testing across print and screen. Results: a flexible multi-weight serif family. Insights and Impacts: improved editorial clarity and expressive branding, supporting cultural, educational, and commercial design applications.
- Challenge
- The primary challenge was balancing historical serif conventions with contemporary visual demands. Internally, the project required respecting typographic heritage while avoiding nostalgia. Externally, it demanded technical precision across multiple weights, italics, and languages within modern digital constraints. Achieving consistency, optical balance, and expressive character across diverse uses required extensive testing, refinement, and reconciliation between tradition, technology, and current design expectations.
- Realization and Technology
- Lubea Serif developed using Glyphs through an extensive digital type design workflow. The production process included precision vector drawing, optical size calibration, master interpolation, and systematic weight expansion across nine weights and corresponding italics. Advanced OpenType features, small caps, ligatures, and multilingual support were engineered through custom feature coding and iterative testing, ensuring typographic consistency, performance, and high-quality output across print and digital environments.
- Operation and Interaction
- Lubea Serif is activated through use: designers apply it to text, and the type adapts naturally to different scales, contexts, and tones. In the exhibition, visitors interact by moving through the space, reading continuously as the typography unfolds. The design performs better by guiding the eye smoothly, maintaining clarity and elegance from large display settings to extended reading, creating an intuitive and engaging visual flow.
- Project Duration and Location
- The Lubea Serif typeface project commenced in January 2025 and concluded with its public presentation in December 2025. The typeface was exhibited for the first time as part of the Lubea Serif Specimen Exhibition in Perugia, marking the official launch of the project and its transition from research and development to public and professional dissemination.
- Specifications
- Lubea Serif is a digital type family composed of 9 upright weights and 9 true italics, plus a variable font version. The typeface supports over 200 Latin-based languages and includes extensive OpenType features such as ligatures, small caps, stylistic alternates, and proportional figures. It is optimized for print and screen use, supplied in OTF and variable font formats, and compliant with ISO/Unicode standards.
- Keywords
- Typography, serif typeface, editorial design, visual identity, cultural communication, book design, exhibition design, readability, elegance, contemporary classics, expressive typography, design research, immersive typography, graphic design, typographic systems
