K Is For King, Q Is For Queen

Hat-trick designer Jim Sutherland has created a typographic chess set based on characters from the Hoefler & Frere-Jones typeface "Champion". An edition of 50 sets has been produced, using laser-cut acrylic for the pieces. The King, represented by a capital K, of course, is 50mm tall, the pawns 30mm. While Champion lends itself well to this new use, Sutherland says he had to make a couple of adjustments – the Q and P have been redrawn to make them more stable and the Kt ligature (for the Knight) has been redrawn.

The board itself is made from 2mm greyboard foiled in black. "It was a really tricky production in order to get the fine detail and the counters sharp, plus making sure everything stood up properly," Sutherland says. "The hope is that we will go into a longer production run in the future."

A sheet in the packaging includes information about moves and chess notation as well as a selection of chess-themed quotations. A set of postcards, also included in the pack, show how each piece moves. The type(chess)set costs £275.

During research for the project Sutherland started a tumblr site Graphic Chess, recording chess art and graphics, which includes Pentagram's new identity for World Chess.

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